Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
51 COLLEGE RD SERVICE BLDG 107
DURHAM,NH 03824
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) face unique food insecurity challenges that are not well understood. In this proposed Seed Grant project, we aim to understand food security among the IDD population. The long-term goal for this seminal work is to inform implementation guidance for intervening and measuring food security among persons with IDD. We plan to accomplish this through two main objectives. Objective 1: Conduct a formative qualitative study, in collaboration with a stakeholder advisory committee and utilizing a participatory approach, with approximately 30 people with IDD and their family members to understand their food insecurity experience. Objective 2: Build on the formative study findings to co-develop, along with the advisory committee and interviewees, a preliminary measurement tool and intervention implementation guidance intended for social service organizations. This project aligns with several stated goals and priorities of USDA and NIFA including: 1) USDA's Strategic Goal 4: Provide All Americans Safe, Nutritious Food by ensuring that food insecurity challenges of people with IDD are understood; 2) NIFA Priority B: "to investigate, assess, and recommend food and nutrition research and program interventions with the goal to achieve food and nutrition security and improve and sustain health"; 3) Using a participatory approach will explore the specific experiences of individuals with IDD to inform tailoring of approaches (Program Area Priority: Precision nutrition); 4) Furthermore, our participatory approach allows us to understand different cultural and contextual backgrounds of people with IDD (Program Area Priority: Culturally and contextually appropriate approaches).This
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This Seed Grant project will lay a foundation of learnings about food security among the IDD population and their families and develop preliminary guidance that can support future intervention efforts. Seed Grant proposals need only to contain one of the three AFRI components and this project will include the Research component. However, we aim to pursue Standard Integrated Project (SIG) funding upon successful completion of this work.The long-term goal for this seminal work is to inform implementation guidance for intervening and measuring need and intervention effectiveness among persons with IDD. We plan to accomplish this through two main objectives.Obejctive 1:Conduct a formative study, in collaboration with a stakeholder advisory committee and utilizing a community-based participatory approach, to collect and analyze interview data from approximately 30 people with IDD and their family members to understand how food insecurity is experienced in an IDD context and the unique strengths and challenges relevant to this population.Objective 2: Use the formative study findings to co-develop, along with the advisory committee, a preliminary measurement tool and implementation guidance that can guide social service organizations, including those that provide targeted services to persons with IDD and those that serve the broader community but might also touch the lives of persons with IDD, to better understand, identify, measure, and develop interventions and programming to address food insecurity among people with IDD and their families.
Project Methods
Overview. This project will be completed in two main phases, each corresponding to the two stated objectives. Phase 1 will include a qualitative formative study to understand how food insecurity is experienced in an IDD context. In Phase 2, these findings will support the co-development of a preliminary measurement tool and intervention implementation guidance. People with IDD, their families, and various stakeholders will be involved at multiple points throughout the project, including as part of a stakeholder advisory committee.Phase 1: Formative Study. Phase 1 of this proposed study will address Objective 1 through a qualitative formative study. The qualitative approach can be best classified as phenomenological research,as the project team seeks to understand the lived experience of food and nutrition insecurity in the IDD context. Key study activities are detailed below.Finalizing the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. Prior to beginning research activities, we will fill out the rest of the advisory committee. The project team will work with the current members to populate a list of potential advisory committee members. The list will be reviewed for diversity in terms of geographies represented, demographics (e.g., racial/ethnic, gender, age, etc.), and expertise (e.g., programming, research, measurement, food security, IDD, etc.). Prospective advisory committee members will be informed about the study and their roles and responsibilities. Those who agree will be included in the committee, and recruitment will end once at least ten members have agreed to join. Membership might be augmented to make up for any advisory committee members who stop participating and to account for any changing project needs or expertise gaps noticed as the project proceeds.Interview Phase. The project team, in collaboration with the advisory committee, will develop semi-structured interview guides to explore internal and external barriers and facilitators to acquiring enough food overall and enough healthy food. They will be structured around the five pillars of food security and nutrition security.Separate interview guides will be created for independent-living people with IDD and family members.IRB approval will be obtained prior to initiating recruitment and interviews, ensuring that informed consent materials are appropriate for persons with IDD. For recruitment, two interviewee groups will be considered: independent-living adults with IDD and family members who are the caregivers for someone with IDD (both children and adults). Both groups offer important perspectives on food and nutrition insecurity in an IDD context. To be eligible, interviewees must be at least 18 years old, be able to answer questions about themselves and their household and be food insecure or at risk for food insecurity (e.g., if recruited from sites, such as food pantries, likely to serve people who are food-insecure). Up to 15 independent-living persons with IDD and up to 15 family members who are the caregivers for someone with IDD will be recruited. This sample size offers a high likelihood of reaching thematic saturation within both sub-groups separately and for the full sample of up to 30 interviewees.The project team will work with colleagues and the advisory committee to identify contacts who might be interested in assisting with recruitment (e.g., representatives from organizations that work closely with people with IDD and their families who may reach people who are food insecure). Identified contacts will be asked to promote and introduce the study and share contact information with the project team. The project team will then contact the interested interviewees to screen them for eligibility and schedule interviews (or conduct interviews on the spot if preferable). Geographic and demographic (e.g., racial/ethnic, gender, age, etc.) diversity will be considered when sampling. At least 10% of interviews will be conducted in Spanish. Interviews will be scheduled for 45 minutes, and conducted remotely (e.g., over Zoom) or in-person as resources allow. This project team has found from past work that 45-minute interviews balance minimal interviewee burden and providing rich data. All interviewees will be compensated for their time with a $50 gift card. Interviews will be conducted by one of two trained researchers on this project team who have experience interviewing people with IDD and interviewing about peoples' food and nutrition insecurity experiences. The interviews will be audio recorded with participants' permission and transcribed verbatim (detailed notes will be taken for those who do not wish to be recorded). Spanish-language interviews will be conducted using a real-time interpreter (a process this project team has used with success in the past). Following each interview, researchers will discuss (and track) emerging themes. When no new topics are uncovered in two consecutive interviews, theoretical saturation will be reached.Analysis. The thematic analysis approach will utilize Creswell's "lean coding" technique.An iterative process will be used to develop the code list, themes will be allowed to emerge inductively from all sections of the interviews, and the only external framing on the analysis will be the five food security pillars and nutrition security. The advisory committee will review and provide feedback on the initial code list as well. Once finalized, two coders will dual-code 10% of the transcripts to assess agreement and aim to reach at least 80% agreement. The researchers will independently code the transcripts using NVivo qualitative analysis software.Member checking, in which interviewees are asked for feedback on the qualitative findings, is a key step in assessing validity. Themes and sub-themes will be organized into a simple descriptive table with illustrative quotes. A visual model will also be created to help convey the relationships among themes. The interviewees will be invited to a one-hour meeting to provide feedback on the findings, which will be revised as needed per their recommendations. All participants will be compensated for their time with a $50 gift card. Once finalized, the qualitative methods and findings will be described fully in a manuscript. These findings will serve as a foundation for the Phase 2 activities.Phase 2 - Developing Preliminary Intervention Guidance and MeasurePhase 2 of the proposed study will be conducted using an iterative participatory co-development process, which will be a modified process described by van Dijk-de Vries et al. (2020).The key steps will include a requirements determination step, design step, and alpha testing (i.e., expert and stakeholder review).The design will occur in close collaboration with the advisory committee and will also include the interviewees from Phase 1. The primary products will include preliminary versions of an intervention implementation guide and a survey measure of food security tailored to the IDD population. These products will be created in parallel within the same co-development process. It is important to stress that these will be preliminary tools and future work will be needed for beta-testing and finalizing (which are beyond the scope of this Seed funding mechanism).