Foods for Health

About Foods for Health

The Foods for Health Research Initiative facilitates collaborative, multidisciplinary research to investigate the effects of food and nutrition on human health using modern technology and informatics. Our community is empowered by an expansive campus that uniquely co-locates Colleges of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, Education and Human Ecology, Arts and Sciences, seven Health Sciences colleges, a top-ranked academic Medical Center and a Comprehensive Cancer Center.

overhead image of the Ohio State campus

Our Vision

Healthier lives through scientific discovery across food, nutrition and diet.

Our Mission

To advance interdisciplinary research that defines the relationship among foods, disease prevention and health promotion.

Our research development efforts support three core functions

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Innovation

We enable and amplify research through strategic faculty hiring, funding opportunities, and research development programming with an emphasis on team science

faculty team meeting

Collaboration

We connect members of a diverse research community interested in a systems approach to address complex research questions related to food, nutrition and mitigating chronic disease

Students attend Milner Symposium

Education

Through our faculty hires and support for training grants, we train the next generation of scientists studying the impact of food, nutrition, and diet on human health

The Impact of Foods for Health at Ohio State

Foods for Health was launched in 2016 as part of a comprehensive university initiative aimed at tackling complex societal challenges through strategic faculty hires and interdisciplinary research programs. Our success is measured by key metrics such as faculty recruitment, community building, and scholarly achievements, which encompass securing new grants and publishing research findings.

  • 10 FFH faculty hires in 4 colleges and 7 departments
  • 95 Affiliated faculty from 11 colleges and 46 departments
  • 255 Publications featuring FFH faculty research
  • $34M New external funding led by FFH faculty hires
  • $1.1M Invested in seed research since 2016
  • $11.5M ROI generated by FFH seed funding