Thriving Communities

The School Breakfast Program helps children, regardless of household income, can start their school day with a meal. However, many eligible students are unable to take advantage of this program due to transportation barriers, limited time, or not being eligible for a free or reduced-price meal. This project explores these barriers and how to overcome them.

The “Envisioning Community Land Trust” series reflects a collaboration between students of CSD’s Dr. Molly Metzger and two community partners: elected officials and community organizations in Webster Groves, Missouri, and the Green City Coalition in the City of St. Louis, MO. The intention of this series is to make scholarship on CLTs more accessible to the public, in order to foster robust community engagement concerning new possibilities for this model in the St. Louis region.

This project aims to evaluate how a comprehensive Medically Tailored Meals program offered in St. Louis can improve outcomes for adults with type 2 diabetes.

This is a four year R01 study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to assess nationwide policy implementation and decision-making processes and develop an agent-based model to demonstrate how policy changes affect school district meal program implementation.

How can policies be overhauled to build a more equitable and inclusive society? How can communities engage to implement an anti-segregation agenda? Our work in inclusive housing is tackling these challenges.

This initiative investigates what social conditions and policy supports can make life with a low or moderate income stable, secure, satisfying and successful.

This study is an evaluation of the Fresh Rx: Nourishing Heathy Starts, a program administered by Operation Food Search providing food and nutrition supports to food insecure pregnant women to improve health and birth outcomes.

We designed an initiative to develop an integrated “equity” framework for community development to inform constituencies about effective redevelopment of a neighborhood.

The Policy and Housing Opportunity initiative is a collaboration between students of CSD’s Dr. Molly Metzger and community partners in the St. Louis region. The initiative is designed to broaden housing opportunity in metropolitan St. Louis and particularly in the region's majority-white, inner-ring suburbs.

Missouri’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program is important for the nutrition and health of recipients. Yet, only 53% of eligible Missourians have enrolled in WIC in recent years, and program participation rates have declined over the past decade. Operation Food Search (OFS) and Missouri Foundation for Health are examining ways to increase program enrollment and remove barriers to participation for WIC-eligible Missourians.