Massachusetts - Dr. Deborah Frank

Updated April 2006

Dr. Deborah Frank has been an active advocate for children in many ways.  Her own publications include “Child Hunger in the United States: A Doctor’s View” for the Bread for the World Hunger Report 2006 and a co-authored letter to the editor in The Boston Globe about food stamps.  She has been quoted in articles by the LA Times, the Food Research and Action Center, and the Boston Globe, and she was interviewed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Newspaper, Health Programming Update, about C-SNAP, the Grow Clinic, and the health effects of food insecurity. 

Dr. Frank is also active in orally speaking out for children.  In October 2005, she was the keynote speaker on why doctors should care about hunger at the Family Advocacy Program’s annual conference in Boston.  Furthermore, she has been an invited speaker at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts University Gershoff Symposium, Food Research and Action Center Conference, RESULTS Conference with Docs For Tots, United Way of Palm Beach County, Public Health Department of Palm Beach County, and the Congressional Hunger Center Emerson Hunger Fellows training program.  

Dr. Frank’s advocacy work even took her all the way to Capitol Hill where she met with advocacy groups and legislative staff to discuss the connection between subsidized housing and child nutrition.  On a separate occasion, she participated as part of a panel at a hearing on welfare reform reauthorizations at the US House of Representatives.  In her testimony, she discussed the issue of food insecurity and the negative impact that H.R. 240, the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005, would have on children.