The mission of the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development is to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations around the world by eliminating health inequities and promoting human rights and social justice for all persons by being a global leader and partner in capacity strengthening, research, service, and advocacy.
In their new article, Resilient Food Security Information Systems in the Age of Disruption (Food Policy, 2025), Nathan Morrow, PhD, and Nancy Mock, DrPH, along with their co-authors, uphold that mission as they make a case for transforming how we collect and use data to ensure global food security. Written with policy impact in mind, the authors warn that current food security information systems (FSIS) are not built to withstand the political, financial, and technological disruptions they increasingly face.
The authors identify the serious threats of political interference, unstable funding, misinformation, and even intentional data manipulation. Their analysis calls for urgent reforms to make FSIS more transparent, independent, and resilient, leveraging their research to advocate for more resilient and equitable policy systems. By framing their research around systemic risk and resilience, Drs. Morrow and Mock speak directly to decision-makers, funders, and implementers. They not only diagnose the problems but offer clear prescriptions: build systems that can withstand shocks, engage stakeholders beyond the usual actors, and protect the integrity of data that underpins global responses to hunger and crisis.
This article models how faculty can use scholarship to advance change. Drs. Morrow and Mock show that publishing rigorous research can be an act of public engagement, linking evidence with strategy. Their work reflects our department’s belief that research is not just for understanding the world, but for improving it.
Read the full article here: ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919225001137)
Citation: Morrow, N., Mock, N., et al. (2025). Food Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102678
