In a region whose rural areas have long led the nation on a host of health-related problems -- such as rates of low-birth weight babies, infant mortality, teenage pregnancies, and family poverty -- improving health care availability and access is vital to the social and economic well being of rural places. Attention must be given to improving the capacity of rural communities to understand, and to effectively address, the health care challenges which they now face.

Also needing continued attention is the level of food insecurity that persists in the South. Several states in the region are among the leaders in the country in terms of the percentage of individuals and households that are food insecure. Expanded efforts are needed to examine the factors that contribute to food insecurity and hunger among people and households in the rural South. Assessing the adequacy of federal and state programs that promote food security among the region's most vulnerable populations (i.e., low-income, female-headed household, children, elderly) is also critical. Such studies can provide the basis for delineating the type of improvements that may be needed in our nation's food and nutrition safety net.

Food Assistance/RIDGE Program:

The Center carries out key activities in support of the Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) program in partnership with the Economic Research Service and the Farm Foundation. In particular, the SRDC:

• Maintains a strong focus on a competitive small grants research program targeted to faculty located in institutions of higher learning
• Invests resources in further advancing the research capacity of the South's 1890 land-grant institutions in addressing current and emerging food assistance research issues in the region
• Publishes a special policy brief series, Addressing the Food Assistance Needs of the South's Vulnerable Populations, that highlights key finding and implications emerging from each of the small grants program funded as part of the SRDC's food assistance research program

Grant recipients funded by the SRDC through the RIDGE program since 1998 can be viewed here.