This piece is part of the weekly series “Growing Forward: Insights for Building Better Food and Agriculture Systems,” presented by the Global Food Institute at the George Washington University and the nonprofit organization Food Tank. Each installment highlights forward-thinking strategies to address today’s food and agriculture related challenges with innovative solutions. To view more pieces in the series, click here.
The burden of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease is rising across the United States and especially harming the most vulnerable communities.
This national challenge is becoming increasingly acute, driving up health care costs and undermining our nation’s economic strength by diminishing workforce productivity and resilience. Adult obesity rates have nearly tripled since the 1970s, while the number of Americans with diabetes has more than doubled since 2000. The Pentagon has even identified obesity as a national security threat as it reduces the pool of eligible recruits.
The challenge, then, is not just about caring for and treating these diseases today. More importantly, it’s about finding ways to prevent and slow the tide of disease progression.
Recognizing the urgency of the moment, Novo Nordisk shifted our social impact strategy in 2022 to focus on elevating community health outcomes by broadening access to nutritious food. Previously, our philanthropic efforts were primarily directed toward disease management, with an emphasis on diabetes education and self-care. We believed that improving nutrition would lead directly to better health, and we provided short-term, modest grants to support these initiatives.
In contrast, our new strategy prioritizes multi-year, place-based programs designed to have long-term impact in communities facing the highest burdens of chronic disease. By shifting to larger, long-term interventions, we are now able to drive deeper impact and lay the groundwork for sustained improvements in public health.
This approach also demands collaborative thinking across the range of the social determinants of health—access to safe housing, good jobs, quality care, and physical activity—as well as to good food and nutrition. To do this, we quickly realized that we could neither go at it alone nor had the expertise in areas like housing, transportation, and care.
That’s why we launched The Interrupt—a place for like-minded organizations across the private and nonprofit sectors to bring about an integrated, whole health approach. By combining the expertise and resources of leading brands and organizations, partners of The Interrupt work together to deliver community-focused programs, events, and initiatives that address the everyday factors influencing health—such as access to nutritious food, opportunities for physical activity, and health education.
The Interrupt and our partners are focused on real, practical action in communities. We are supporting urban farms that increase access to fresh food, health screenings for preventative care and job training programs that open up new opportunities. By teaming up with local organizations and national partners, The Interrupt is working side-by-side with communities to tackle the everyday challenges that shape health—making a difference where it matters most.
In early 2025, we started our work in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8. The need for food and nutrition access in this area is high: the area has only one grocery store that serves 75,000 residents. Centering our efforts on a housing complex home to over 3,000 people—Washington View—we’ve invested in launching a community farm, a food pantry with healthy options, cooking classes, physical activity and job training for residents. To date, the pantry has seen nearly 400 visits, serving approximately 600 individuals with the marketplace distributing over 6,000 pounds of food. A 3-on-3 basketball program has been established for young residents.
Critically, we’ve done this in partnership with Bank of America, leveraging its expertise in increasing access to safe and affordable housing and health screenings. To date, Bank of America alongside the American Diabetes Association and Black Nurses Rock has seen about 20 residents each month for workshops and screenings. Together, we’re seeing how we can achieve more together than we can on our own. We are also working to bring in new partners to help address health care access, mental health, and so much more.
We’re seeing a similar payoff through The Interrupt’s The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) Live HealthSmart Alabama initiative. Novo Nordisk has been a long-standing supporter of work in Selma and Birmingham to improve health conditions through food and nutrition, built environment and health care access, but we brought Uber Health to the table when we saw many residents struggling to get themselves to medical appointments or the grocery store.
Through the program, residents can get free Uber rides for any health-related need, including medical appointments, picking up prescriptions, and grocery store trips. Removing barriers to transportation alongside widening access to healthy food has allowed residents in Selma and Birmingham to gain access to resources that were previously difficult to acquire.
As we established programs in Washington and Alabama, a challenge we’ve grappled with is building trust—particularly in communities that may be more skeptical of outside interventions. Recognizing our limits, we work hand-in-hand with established community groups, local nonprofits, and trusted partners, integrating their input in designing initiatives.
Using the consistent brand name, The Interrupt, has also helped build awareness of, and familiarity with, different programs in the same community. It means there is one delivery point and residents recognize The Interrupt is when they see it on signs and posters, building recognition, and ultimately trust, behind community programs.
In partnering together, companies let go of a natural desire for their brands to be front-and-center and concerns they might over-step each other—because the platform lets individual brands showcase their initiatives while breaking down silos.
In doing so, brands with strong local roots and presence have played a key role, whether its Alabama Power and Light or Cadell Construction helping make recreation spaces feel more welcoming through better lighting and easy access, JW and AS Marriott Foundation with their deep roots in the DMV supporting the program at Washington View through financial support of our physical and mental health efforts.
As we continue our programs in Washington, D.C. and Alabama, we know measurement matters. While changing health outcomes takes time, quick wins build momentum. That’s why we’re delighted to have GW’s Global Food Institute alongside us as an evaluation partner in Washington, D.C., helping us understand how multi-interventional programs can create lasting impact. We hope to apply the learnings from D.C. to help establish a multi-SDOH measurement approach tied to community health that can be applied across programs under The Interrupt.
We’re at the foothills of what’s possible here and want to replicate what we’ve started to build in Washington, D.C. and Alabama in other cities and communities around the U.S. The scale of the challenge of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes can feel overwhelming, but an integrated, whole health partnership can begin to turn the tide.
Photo courtesy of Daderot, Wikimedia Commons
