Queen, Misty Spring and Lee, Eunyoung and Campbell, Kemberly and Cruise, Erin Moving Beyond a Clinical Setting to Reduce Health Disparities: A Food Pantry Approach to Improve Health and Wellness Among Food Insecure Populations. 2020. Radford University, Dissertation. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
Abstract Backgrounds/Significance. Many Americans face difficulty in attaining food and adequate nutrition on a daily basis. Research has shown that social determinants play a large role in health outcomes, with food insecurity (FI) being one of the largest contributors to poor management of chronic disease and increased healthcare costs. Traditional healthcare approaches have a limited access to the FI population, as healthcare access and utilization in this population is complicated by lack of income, insurance, and other competing factors. Purpose/Methods. By leveraging the food pantry’s access to this vulnerable population for health promotion, the severity of FI was evaluated among three food pantries in a small community in Virginia and the feasibility and the effectiveness of the combined education of healthy diet and community resources was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design among adults who visited one of three food pantry. Findings. This study observed that higher levels of FI were strongly connected with lower income (p=0.044) and higher frequencies of food/medication trade-offs (p= 0.01) among the study sample (N=40). This study’s educational intervention utilizing MyPlate among this food pantry populace proved to be a successful and feasible method of health promotion, improving overall knowledge of MyPlate initiatives (6.45 vs. 10.05, p<0.001) and overall confidence in reading food labels and ability to prepare healthy meals on a $4 budget (4.375 vs. 5.7, p<0.001). The resource education intervention also improved overall awareness (19.75 vs. 52.3, p=0) with strong evidence of user intention to use newly found resources (2.375 vs 10.425, p=0). Conclusions. By moving health promotion strategies from the traditional clinical setting to community settings such as food pantries, nurse practitioners and other health professionals can expand their reach into highly vulnerable populations. It is essential to leverage the relative strengths of both the traditional approach and alternative community settings for improving health outcomes for food-insecure populations. Keywords: food insecurity, food pantry, food bank, chronic diseases, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, intervention, diet education, nutrition program, health outcomes.
| Item Type: | Dissertation |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | food insecurity, food pantry, food bank, chronic diseases, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, intervention, diet education, nutrition program, health outcomes. |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RC Internal medicine R Medicine > RT Nursing |
| Divisions: | Radford University > School of Nursing |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Feb 2022 01:36 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Apr 2023 17:10 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/627 |
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