Education and Training

The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has been a leader in food systems and public health education for nearly 30 years, focusing on the interrelatedness of food, human health, and planetary health. Our programs encourage learners to apply systems thinking and to analyze the upstream factors that affect public health outcomes—nutritional, environmental, and social—and to consider how to transform food systems through evidence-based, equity-centered approaches. Our programs bring together diverse perspectives and foster rich, peer-to-peer learning experiences. 

We achieve this through graduate-level coursework, a pre-doctoral fellowship program, training for professionals, and providing a range of resources and curricula that incorporate a public health perspective in food systems education across disciplines.

Education at the Bloomberg School of Public Health

Current and prospective JHU students connect with CLF through an array of opportunities in and out of the classroom.

• Food Systems Coursework and Academic Programs
• CLF-Lerner Fellowship for PhD Students 
• Research Assistant Opportunities

Training Initiatives 

We offer innovative training programs and resources for a variety of partners working within or peripheral to food systems.

• Food Systems and Public Health Fellowship for Journalists
• Nourishing the Future: Learning Modules for Nutrition and Dietitian Programs

Resources and Curricula

The Center supports teachers and learners beyond the traditional university classroom. We raise awareness about food system issues through free courses, textbooks, lesson plans for teachers, and more.

• FoodSpan: Curriculum for high school teachers
• Food System Primer
• Online courses through Coursera
• Meatless Monday Resource Center
• Textbook: Introduction to the US Food System
• Book: Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health
• Book: What If Soil Microbes Mattered? Our Health Depends on Them
• Book: What If CAFOs Were History? The Rise of Regenerative Agriculture

Documentaries

The Center offers short, 40-minute films on the CLF YouTube channel. 

• Growing Solutions: explores innovative approaches to challenges that plague farmers, including climate change.
• Food Frontiers: highlights six pioneering projects from around the country that are reducing food insecurity in communities. 
• Out to Pasture: compares pastured livestock farms with the prevailing industrial approach involving large-scale confinement.

Journalism Fellows Dive into Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay

The second cohort of journalists in the Food Systems and Public Health Fellowship for Journalists program learned about the oyster and crab industries on the Eastern Shore.

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Pastor, Fellow, Researcher: Bringing Equity into the Food System

Darriel Harris is the first Cynthia and Robert S. Lawrence Fellow at the Bloomberg School.

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Five Fellows Collaborate to Tackle the Public Health Implications of Industrial Food Animal Production

Five CLF-Lerner Fellows spanning 17 years of fellowship support are still collaborating on research regarding industrial food animal production.

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