Nourishing the world
Agriculture is key to better health, a sustainable environment and a robust economy
The Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, IHA, is the world’s first research institute to combine precision nutrition, responsive agriculture and behavioral research to reduce diet-related chronic disease in a way that considers environmental and economic effects.
IHA and affiliated scientists work at the forefront of nutrition, agriculture and social and behavioral science innovation. Using the alignment and interface of these key areas sparks leading solutions to combat complex public health challenges.
The IHA’s work makes food systems more sustainable. It makes food producers more prosperous. It gives communities new hope for a healthier future.
Uniting scholars across three fields
Precision Nutrition
Precision Nutrition is the science of connecting nutritional needs with biological, environmental and life-stage factors to optimize human health. Precision Nutrition research identifies how interindividual variability affects the biological response to food and dietary patterns that impact health and drive agricultural innovation.
Healthy Living
Healthy Living is advancement of community-engaged social and behavioral research across nutrition, food systems and active living to improve population health. Healthy Living engages people in the communities in which they live, work, and play to create, adapt, test and scale-up evidence-based health programs that are tailored to personal, sociocultural and environmental context.
Responsive Agriculture
Responsive Agriculture is the design and management of food systems that dynamically adapt, align and sustain agricultural production with human nutritional needs, environmental conditions and economic prosperity for farmers and ranchers, to improve health. It fosters science-based innovation to ensure resilient agricultural and food systems that provide nutritious and accessible food to promote health.
Read the IHA’s annual impact report.
Project Spotlight
Research transforms lives worldwide
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Strong Teens for Healthy Schools Change Club
A middle school-based, 16-week program aiming to instill healthy habits in teens.
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Discovering the antioxidant properties and benefits of grains (sorghum) and other novel uses to enhance human health
A pilot for scaling interdisciplinary research to connect agriculture and health.
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Diet exposure assessment project
Measuring factors that connect diet and health, and helping people shift their dietary habits
IHA News
Texas A&M AgriLife receives federal funding for New World screwworm research
14 projects to address sterile fly production, product assessment, other tools
Rangel, Nayga and Wingenbach among Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award winners
Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences celebrates three faculty who earn award
Research reveals diet combination that triggers colorectal cancer cell death
AgriLife Research links fiber and healthy fats to possible cancer-fighting effect, ferroptosis
Let’s defeat diet-related chronic disease
Obesity. Diabetes. Hypertension. These and other diet-related chronic diseases have become a nationwide epidemic. Conquering them will demand innovation across disciplines.
The IHA is leading the fight. Working together, our researchers transform agricultural practices to yield healthful foods, produced profitably and sustainably. They work to change harmful dietary habits. They tackle healthcare inequity head-on.
Help us win the battle against diet-related chronic disease.