Wellness and Nutrition
Our vision is a world where public health and wellbeing are prioritized in all relevant policy decisions.
What’s Happening Now
We promote a sustainable agricultural system intrinsically linked to public health, where practices enhance water and soil quality, further diverse and healthy food options, and contribute to the overall wellness of our society.
Recent Wellness and Nutrition Events
Harkin On Wellness Symposium 2025: The Future of Clean Water
April 16, 2025
Clean water is fundamental to public health and environmental sustainability and is increasingly under threat from climate change and other human-caused risks. Community-based initiatives that protect and improve water quality have been shown to have lasting, positive impacts on both human and environmental health. Furthermore, programs that engage communities in hands-on water quality improvement and conservation can foster environmental stewardship that benefits current and future generations.
This event highlighted and synthesized the progress being made around the country in protecting and improving water quality through community engagement, environmental education, watershed protection, water conservation initiatives, and innovative water quality monitoring programs.
Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health
September 25 & 26, 2024
The rapid concentration of farm animal production in factory farms makes meat, dairy, and eggs plentiful and cheap, but this type of agriculture comes at a great cost to human health, communities, and the environment. A new book by Johns Hopkins University Press, Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health, brings together public health and other experts to examine some of the most critical topics related to industrial farm animal production. This conference, convened in Des Moines, Iowa – the capital of the state with the greatest density of confined animal feeding operations, highlighted critically important information from the book and provided a forum for expert perspectives on growing threats to public health that are too often overlooked.
Harkin On Wellness Symposium 2024: Wellbeing in Schools
April 3, 2024
The prevalence of mental health issues has increased dramatically in recent years, particularly in the wake of massive social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This led the nation’s leading child health organizations and the US Surgeon General to declare a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health. As the location where children spend the largest portion of their time outside of the home, we believe the K-12 school system can be a key vehicle for changes that can positively impact children’s wellbeing across the United States.
The event brought together policymakers, education leaders, teachers, pediatricians, and practice innovators from around the country to address whole child wellbeing approaches, review the scientifically supported best practices, and consider the case for placing health and wellbeing squarely at the heart of our education system’s mission to prepare students for successful lives.
Address: 2800 University Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50311
Phone: (515) 271-3623
Email: harkininstitute@drake.edu
Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.