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Twenty people have been named to the advisory committee that will help shape the 2025-2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, including health equity experts.
In a release, the Department of Health and Human Services and USDA posted their names, calling them “nationally recognized nutrition and public health experts” but without any explanation as to why they were chosen or any mention of their specific areas of expertise.
However, the departments also made clear that the committee will look at the scientific evidence through a “health equity lens” and the membership reflects that direction.
Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, for example, is executive director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy at Oklahoma State University, and Angela Odoms-Young is an associate professor at Cornell University who conducts research on dietary behavior in low-income and minority communities. Fatima Cody Stanford is an equity director at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Jessi Silverman, senior policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said CSPI is “excited by by this committee, and want to express our congratulations to all of them.” She said the members have “a diversity of expertise and backgrounds in a way that I think is unprecedented.”
“There are a couple of notable health equity experts on the committee,” Silverman said, noting she has “great respect and admiration” for Odoms-Young and that Jernigan is an expert on nutritional issues in Native American communities.
The committee has been tasked, USDA and HHS said, with ensuring that “factors such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and culture are described and considered to the greatest extent possible based on the information provided in the scientific literature and data.”
In addition, the DGAC “will examine the relationship between diet and health across all life stages.”
HHS and USDA, which work together to coordinate the DGAC process, have yet to release the final version of the proposed scientific questions the committee will consider at its first meeting Feb. 9-10.
An HHS spokesperson said Thursday that HHS and USDA have “refined the proposed scientific questions based on public comments, federal input, and the consideration of research availability. The updated questions will be proposed to the committee for their input before release and before starting their evidence review.”
“The committee will be tasked with reviewing the current body of science on key nutrition topics and developing a scientific report that includes its independent assessment of the evidence and recommendations for HHS and USDA as they develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” HHS and USDA said in their release. “The committee’s review, public comments, and input from other federal nutrition experts will help inform HHS and USDA” as they prepare the DGA.
The members, along with quotes from the linked pages with biographical information, are as follows:
This story has been updated to include reaction and more information on the scientific questions to be considered by the committee.
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Steve Davies
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