It was hard to walk around Bushwick this year and not bump into a RiseBoro Farmers Market. Recently, these fun, colorful, and conveniently located markets started offering the neighborhood more than fresh food, cooking lessons, and community—they also became a site for an epic public survey RiseBoro is using to help understand and tackle the neighborhood’s infamous food and nutrition inequities.

The roots of the survey go back more than a year to the launch of RiseBoro’s Bushwick Cooks, which Program Manager Androniki Lagos describes as “a 360 degree approach to community food access, health and wellness.” Bushwick Cooks seeks to address Bushwick’s high rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health concerns related to diet through a multitude of approaches, including farmers markets, nutrition education, and urban gardening programs. “We ask what the root causes are, and then how we can start to break down those barriers to better health,” Lagos says.

Now is a particularly important time to understand and act on community health concerns, says Lagos: “As Bushwick continues to change rapidly, with increasing development and skyrocketing rents, we want to make sure the neighborhood’s long-time residents are not left behind; that they have the resources they need and are supported on their own journeys to wellness and self-empowerment.”