The World Health Organization (WHO) states that unsafe food is linked to the deaths of an estimated two-million people each year, many of them children.
The changing landscape of food production and trade create new threats to food safety faster than ever before. Michigan State University researcher Felicia Wu is tackling this challenge head on, and is available to speak on several topics for WHO’s World Health Day on April 7, 2015.
Wu, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition and Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, is an internationally recognized expert in global health, agriculture and trade.
“As the population grows and the climate changes, food safety and security becomes more and more important,” Wu said. “The world’s population is expected to reach nearly 10 billion by the year 2050, creating drastically increased demands on agriculture and food production around the world.”
Wu believes it is not enough to just produce more food, but that plant, animal and human health must be taken into account when agricultural policies and practices are being designed.
“By integrating our approach with health considerations, we can ensure distribution of food to the populations in need worldwide, while maintaining, and even improving, human health,” she said.
Wu’s research addresses the future of health worldwide, including issues in agriculture, nutrition, economics, and human health. She can speak on several topics, including: antibiotic resistance, genetically modified crops (GMO’s), mathematical modeling, global trade patterns and foodborne toxins.
Wu leads a first-of-its-kind center that ties the study of global food supply, agriculture and nutrition to the study of human health at MSU, the Center for Health Impacts of Agriculture. She can speak to the three objectives of the center, including: antimicrobial resistance, how agricultural development in developing countries contributes to disease and nutrient regulation and policy practices in the United States.
Wu is a member of the World Health Organization Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group, as well as the expert roster of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives of the United Nations. She is also a scientific advisor to the International Life Sciences Institute Food, Nutrition, and Safety Program and serves as the health risk area editor for the journal Risk Analysis.
Felicia Wu can be contacted via email at fwu@msu.edu and at 517-355-8474.