Source: CORBIN HILL FOOD PROJECT, INC., THE submitted to NRP
FOOD AS MEDICINE (FAM) SUPPLEMENTAL
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1029170
Grant No.
2022-70423-38076
Cumulative Award Amt.
$500,000.00
Proposal No.
2022-06769
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 15, 2022
Project End Date
Sep 14, 2025
Grant Year
2022
Program Code
[PPR]- Produce Prescription
Recipient Organization
CORBIN HILL FOOD PROJECT, INC., THE
475 RIVERSIDE DR
NEW YORK,NY 101150002
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
SummaryThe Food as Medicine project (FAM), led by Harlem-based Corbin Hill Food Project, will measure the impact of a produce prescription program to reduce food insecurity and improve health. In partnership with Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Institute for Family Health's Bronx Health REACH Project, FAM will collect data on dietary health and behavior and reduction of household food insecurity with the long- term goal to reduce healthcare use and associated costs. Our initial proposal for the Food as Medicine project provided data on the health and economic disparities for the South Bronx and Harlem communities. The depth of these disparities is best captured by the Bronx being ranked 62nd, last among the 62 counties in New York State over the last ten years County Health Rankings 2021. Ultimately, health outcomes, including length and quality of life, begin with basic access to fresh, healthy food that is culturally relevant.As a BIPOC founded and led organization with a history of working with low income, immigrant, and communities of color, we view the community assets as its people. As assets they become advisors, leaders, and decision-makers with the capability of change and ownership within their community. Given a voice, people know what they want, and they want to be part of the decision-making process.Our proposed innovations will focus on seniors over the age of 55 that will include formerly incarcerated seniors living in supportive housing. To achieve our goal to remove structural barriers that allows for choice and to build community around existing assets and infrastructure, we will address hidden financial barriers to access, establish a Community-based FAM Council along with a gifting program among participants to build community cohesiveness around FAM. We will extend communication to include our public access television in two boroughs of the City. Our proposed research enhancements will include a series of case studies that will provide future direction to help describe prescription programs that will have lasting impact directed and owned by the community.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
70360991010100%
Knowledge Area
703 - Nutrition Education and Behavior;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other;

Field Of Science
1010 - Nutrition and metabolism;
Goals / Objectives
PROJECT NARRATIVE:1. Community Needs to be Addressed: The significance of the food and nutrition security anddiet-related health condition(s) that will be addressed by the proposed project, and an informativedescription of the community, its characteristics, assets, and needs.The Food as Medicine project (FAM), led by Harlem-based Corbin Hill Food Project, will measure theimpact of a produce prescription program to reduce food insecurity and improve health. Inpartnership with Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and theInstitute for Family Health's Bronx Health REACH Project, FAM will collect data on dietary healthand behavior and reduction of household food insecurity with the long- term goal to reducehealthcare use and associated costs. Our initial proposal for the Food as Medicine project provideddata on the health and economic disparities for the South Bronx and Harlem communities. The depthof these disparities is best captured by the Bronx being ranked 62nd, last among the 62 counties inNew York State over the last ten years County Health Rankings 2021. Ultimately, health outcomes,including length and quality of life, begin with basic access to fresh, healthy food that isculturally relevant.Three new sites have been added as part of this innovation grant., Two are in Community Board #9 in West Harlem (CD 9). The third site is Morrisiana in the Bronx, (Mandela Housing) the poorest of all the poor neighborhoods in the Bronx. According to a city health report from 2018, CD 9 in Harlem has one of the highest poverty rates in all of Manhattan, with 20 percent of residents falling below the poverty line. Additional data shows that nearly a third of CD9 is composed of individuals aged 50 and over with 11 percent of adults lacking health insurance.A community health report released in 2018 highlighted that on average there is a greater prevalence of immunocompromised individuals in CD9 when compared to other districts in Manhattan. CD9 has higher smoking, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and HIV diagnosis rates. The district also has the third highest number of reported rates of child emergency room visits due to asthma (Community Health Profiles, 2018).As a measure of economic instability that reflect food insecurity, the percentage of people receiving SNAP benefits in Harlem continues to be significantly higher than the rest of the city, exceeding 40% (ACS 2019). According to the Citizens' Committee for Children, Harlem ranked as moderately high risk, in the health domain. (CCC 2020). Nutrition-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are prevalent in Harlem communities with rates surpassing city and national averages, both 10.5% (Action Report, 2018).Along with other low-income and high-risk neighborhoods in New York City, Harlem has faced the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, suffered high rates of hospitalizations and deaths when compared to the city average (Coronavirus Disease, 2019). The project comes at a propitious time when addressing nutritional gaps through Food as Medicine (FAM) in this low-income communities is especially important as the community has faced a pandemic that disproportionately impacted on those with pre-existing conditions.Two of the new sites operated by the Fortune Society. Mandela Community (Bronx) has 57 permanent supportive, transitional, and permanent housing apartments and the Castle in Harlem has 50 units of affordable community housing & 63 units of supportive housing, for previously justice involved seniors.All these units, at both Fortune sites are targeted toward low-income people, with the maximum income of 60% of area median income with many having income substantially lower. Food Insecurity according to the National Institute of Health, 91% of people transitioning from incarceration report experiencing food insecurity. Mass incarceration has had a devastating impact on low-income communities, contributing significantly to poor nutrition, health, and wellness outcomes. In NYC, the communities with the highest levels of food insecurity are the same communities with a collective poverty rate of 27.8% (compared to 17.9% for the rest of NYC) and the primary neighborhoods where New Yorkers involved in the criminal legal system reside. Like many of the residents from these neighborhoods, there exists high unemployment rates and an ongoing struggle with food insecurity.2. Project Goals, Objectives, and Intended Outcomes:The appropriateness of the goals, objectives, and outcomes of the project and how these goals willbe achieved throughout the project period.Overall Project GoalsThe goals of the innovations are to: address structural barriers to accessing food; build communitycohesiveness around food as medicine that extends beyond the grant; create lasting educationalresources that address food as medicine that include the wider community and are available tocommunity in the future; enhance research that contributes new understanding and knowledge to thefield through a series of case studies linking applied research from this project with existingNIFA data.Overall OutcomesThe outcomes from these combined innovations are intended to achieve greater community inclusionalong with extending the duration and reach of this program in the community after funding hasended through the documentation of the innovative models that potentially will be applicable to the field of Food as Medicine and adoptionby the community.
Project Methods
Goal I - Removing Structural Barriers to Access• Provide transportation vouchers and tokens to address transportation costs that are hidden costs and barriers to food access.• Accommodate work schedules by the use of refrigerated lockers to accommodate pick-up times.• Utilize Buy-in value and payment method along with a range of payment options and value coupled with a gifting model to facilitate participation• Increase the flexibility for who can pick up the food for a program participant including designated family members, friends, and neighbors, which would further strengthen community cohesiveness and participation (both current and future).Goal II - Building Community Cohesiveness Around Food as Medicine• Creation of a community led food as medicine council to provide continuous feedback on program design to continue the project with community buy-in resources and support based on community needs and desires (e.g., community garden, health fair, panel events, etc.)• Provide cooking sessions to shift local diets from highly processed foods to less processed and fresh foods beginning with cultural seasonings used daily that are highly processed. (e.g., Adobo, sofrito) coupled with a gifting program to neighbors that demonstrate healthy alternatives within the community• Implement a gifting program to incentivizing neighbors learning and participating in the Food as Medicine program. This gifting program will reach some 600 neighbors.• Create monthly community newsletter to increase community voices and community dialogue around healthy food and access• Implement a community recipes gathering using fresh food, for ultimate production of a digital community recipe book• Implement swap boxes at the pick-up sites so participants can trade fresh food, and to provide community choice and agency• Create community owned, controlled, and distributed education materials to extend the reach and duration of this food as medicine program• Create community voice through productions that can utilize Neighborhood Access TV (Manhattan and Bronx) as ongoing channels and forums that incorporated all its food as medicine events ranging from cooking to community gatherings, FAM Council meetings, including community webinar series covering all community events related to Food as MedicineGoal III - Enhanced Research and Knowledge Dissemination• Impact on health behaviors:• Missed medical appointments• Feedback on the produce prescription:• Produce and Fruits eaten and not eaten• Number in household that the food serves• Adequacy of share size• Pricing and perceived value• Community Cohesiveness• Communications with neighbors about program• Participation in gifting program with neighbors• Additional barriers not addressed:• Other hidden costs and other barriers to accessing food shares at specific pick up times and dates.• Additional feedback on the program from the participants and their suggestions for resolving food access issues and barriers.

Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Program locations include Fortune Society sites (Mandaela and Castle Garden), Harlem Wellness sites (General Locations and Philip Randolph Houses). Fortune Society provides wrap-around supportive housing for formerly justice-involved seniors. Harlem Wellness provides healthy living workshops for Harlem residents within the 10026, 10027, 10030 and 10031 zip codes. Over 160 familes participated in bi-weekly produce box distributions starting February 2022. Changes/Problems:During the implementation of our Food as Medicine (FAM) program, Corbin Hill Food Project (CHFP) encountered significant challenges that required changes to our evaluation strategy. These changes stemmed primarily from limited capacity among institutional partners and the complexities of aligning research timelines with urgent community programming needs. Despite these hurdles, CHFP prioritized integrity in program delivery while actively seeking alternatives to fulfill our evaluation goals. Our original evaluation partner, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, secured IRB approval in late 2022 to oversee data collection for the project (Award No: 2022-70423-38076). At the same time, Bronx Health REACH (BHR) obtained its own IRB approval for evaluation efforts through the Institute for Family Health. As implementation began in February 2023, CHFP launched programming at high-need residential sites, such as the Philip Randolph Houses, based on requests from trusted partners working directly with food-insecure populations. Although Mount Sinai had been slated to lead data collection at both clinical and residential sites, logistical and capacity-related delays prevented its clinical sites from participating in program launch. Residential sites, on the other hand, had referring providers and participants ready. CHFP was thus faced with a difficult decision: delay programming to wait for evaluation infrastructure, or proceed to meet community needs. Given the urgency, CHFP began implementation without collecting pre-survey data, maintaining responsiveness to our community-first commitment. Despite multiple planning meetings and efforts to re-align evaluation timelines, Mount Sinai ultimately withdrew from the project in April 2023, citing the inability to provide IRB coverage for residential sites outside its institutional network. Their formal withdrawal left a significant gap in our evaluation process. To rebuild our evaluation infrastructure, CHFP formed a new partnership with Lehman College and Dr. Katherine Burt, Program Director of the undergraduate Dietetics, Foods & Nutrition Program. This partnership aligned well with CHFP's evolving mission under new executive leadership, which emphasized food and data sovereignty, and deeper community integration. Together with Dr. Burt, CHFP co-developed a revised IRB proposal during the fall and winter of 2023. However, due to institutional timelines and limited dedicated staff capacity, the IRB was not submitted and approved until February 2024--leaving fewer than six months remaining in the grant period. Ultimately, this delay rendered it unfeasible to collect robust pre- and post-survey data or complete qualitative components in the final three months of the project. Despite these constraints, CHFP remains committed to learning from these challenges and has significantly strengthened its internal research capacity to ensure future projects can be launched with greater alignment and readiness. Our Director of Research and Narrative, Norma Gonzalez--who previously led multiple roles across the program--now leads all research efforts, bringing dedicated oversight to our data and evaluation strategy moving forward. Importantly, while we were unable to execute the full evaluation plan as originally envisioned, our programming outcomes, community council activities, and implementation insights continue to inform our evolving Food as Medicine framework. The lessons learned will support our efforts to document and disseminate models of food access rooted in justice, sovereignty, and long-term community leadership. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our project provided several meaningful opportunities for training and professional development that centered community knowledge and leadership. One of the core innovations was the integration of a Community Chef who facilitated regular skill shares during program pick-up times. These sessions served as hands-on, bi-lingual, and culturally grounded learning experiences, where participants explored ancestral healing practices, nutritious cooking techniques, and fresh food preparation. The workshops not only increased nutrition literacy but also empowered participants with transferable skills that support household wellness and community-based food education. Additionally, members of our Food as Medicine program were invited to join our Community Council--a leadership and decision-making body that meets regularly to guide program implementation. Participation on the Council has allowed community members to deepen their skills in facilitation, evaluation, and program co-design, cultivating confidence and agency as peer educators, advocates, and local food system leaders. Through both direct skill-building and ongoing involvement in program governance, the project supported a broader pipeline of community-centered professional development that will extend beyond the life of the grant. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have not yet released a full report to our target populations, but we are committed to transparent and accessible dissemination of our program outcomes. To ensure that results are shared in a meaningful and community-centered way, we are developing a one-page summary that highlights key findings, outcomes, and next steps from the program. This summary will be designed for digital distribution and will be shared via text message, email, and our social media platforms to maximize reach and accessibility. We are also exploring opportunities to present the findings at upcoming community gatherings to allow for direct dialogue, feedback, and continued relationship-building with those most impacted by the program. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, our primary focus will be on completing and distributing our one-page program summary to former participants and community members. To prepare for this, we will first confirm and update all contact information to ensure that outreach is successful and inclusive. We are currently finalizing the content and layout of the one-pager, with remaining tasks including refining image selections and validating visual data comparisons to ensure clarity and accessibility. Our goal is to disseminate the finalized one-pager by the end of August 2025, using multiple communication channels--including text, email, and social media--to reach as many stakeholders as possible. This effort supports our broader aim of community transparency, continued engagement, and sustained impact beyond the formal grant period.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To address structural barriers to food access, we shifted our Produce Prescription (PrX) distribution model from clinic-based pick-ups to an on-site delivery system located directly at the residential housing complex where participants live. This innovation significantly increased access and convenience, as participants were able to retrieve their produce just feet from their homes. Compared to our previous GusNIP award cycle--where participants had to pick up their boxes at health clinics and attendance rates ranged from 50-60%--our residential model saw a remarkable 99% pickup rate, demonstrating the effectiveness of reducing logistical barriers. Our project emphasized iterative learning and collaboration through monthly meetings with key partners and frequent in-person site visits. These regular check-ins created a feedback loop that allowed us to make rapid adjustments to the Food as Medicine (FAM) program design in response to community and partner needs. While we were unable to establish formal collaborations with external health centers within the grant timeline, our internal coordination created a strong foundation for future cross-sector partnerships. To deepen community education and engagement, we included weekly bilingual recipe sheets and produce descriptions in every box. These were paired with live skill shares led by our Community Chef, allowing participants to see and taste recipes in action using ingredients from their boxes. These materials will be archived and made publicly accessible on our website by the end of 2025, ensuring their availability to the wider community well beyond the duration of the program. Although we did not formally conduct research case studies during this grant cycle, our Community Council continues to play a critical role in documenting and evolving our approach. The Council--composed of self-selected and community-elected members from our FAM program--has remained active beyond the grant period and entirely on a volunteer basis. Council members have helped shape the implementation of the FAM program and are now playing a pivotal role in the planning and development of our forthcoming brick-and-mortar location. Together, we are co-creating a new, replicable framework for community-based PrX programs grounded in food access, food justice, and food sovereignty principles--ensuring lasting impact and community ownership well into the future.

Publications


    Progress 09/15/22 to 09/14/23

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Our target audience are residents in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan; focusing on Black and Latinx communities that are food insecure. The program is available to residents that qualify for EBT Benefits and to residents that do not qualify for benefits. Theresidentsare over the age of 55 and include individuals who were formerly incarcerated andindividuals who have disabilities with limited mobility. The program provides a home delivery model and addresses the need of individuals living in supportive housing. The three residential locations are Mandaela Housing (60 Residents), Castle Gardens (35 Residents),and A. Philip Randolph Houses (40 Residents). Changes/Problems:Major changes/problemsin approach include a delay in our IRB approval and a change in partner relationship with Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospitalwhich caused the progrm to start later than initially planned. Logistic issues with proposed innovationssuch as refrigerated lockers have not been implemented; the residential sites cannot accomodate the required equipment. Our main food producers are in the northeast region; the planting/growingseason in this region maylimit the variety of produce and fruit available (example: Apples are the primary fruit availableduring January - March). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Peer to Peer training amongst staff, educational seminars, and conferences pertaining to the changes in the food ecosystem have benefited our team and have allowed us to share this knowledge with residents. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Program results have been disseminated to communities of interests through newsletters, community meetings, and social media. Changes to our website draws visual attention to our work in the community via the Food as Medicine (FAM) program. Community Council meetings assist in providing feedback to/from residents and other community leaders. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?To accomplish the goals in the next reporting period, we plan to have food skill share events, continue food demonstrations, and launch an App to assist with food choices based on individualpreferences (health condition, food preparation time, type of produce).

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Under the program, 135 Residents/Families in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan were provided access to fresh produce and fruitin the convenience of their own home. Removing travel barriers, reducing physical efforts of lifting packages, and lower dependency for online ordering. Residents were educated on healthy food choices, attended food demonstrations on how to prepare meals, and engaged in dialogue on what affects their community. Residents receive fresh produce and fruit delivered to their home every two weeks. At each location, we traina resident to manage the distribution process of the fresh produce and fruitto their neighbors. This collaboration createsa trusting &welcoming environment for the other residents, empowersthe site resident because they assisted the program serving their community,and providesdirect feedback about the challenges of the program.

    Publications