Progress 03/01/22 to 02/28/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The work of this grant seeks to understand the food and healthcare access impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities in northern New England, specifically Vermont and Maine. Through two statewide surveys, we reached individuals living within these states to examine the prevalence of food insecurity and health outcomes among households to understand demographics that were particularly vulnerable to food insecurity and its accompanying adverse health outcomes. Our research is of particular interest to state and federal policymakers and social service organizations, informing actions to support vulnerable populations, increase food security, and spur economic development. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the first year, this project has provided mentorship and training for both undergraduate and graduate-level students around data analysis and manuscript drafting. One student researcher successfully defended her Food Systems Master's thesis, Humanizing Hunger: Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Food and Healthcare Access in Northern New England, in April, 2023. A Masters of Science in Dietetics capstone project, Food Security and Health Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the LGBTQ+ Population: Evidence from a Cohort of Adults in Maine and Vermont During 2021, is being prepared for journal submission. Our postdoctoral associate, Ashley McCarthy, has lead-authored one research brief, provided mentoring to both undergraduate and graduate student researchers, and presenting findings through conference presentations. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our July research report was made publicly available through publication in University of Vermont Scholarworks and the National Food Access and COVID Research Team (NFACT) website, as well as our research brief lead authored by undergraduate student Ashleigh Angle on changes in home food production since the start of the pandemic. Members of our research team have presented project results to representatives from key food access and health organizations (Hunger Councils of Vermont; THRIVE community health team), clinical professionals (Northern New England Clinical & Translational Research Network), and public health experts (American Public Health Association). We are committed to publishing all peer-reviewed manuscripts as open access to ensure accessibility of results. Additionally, our research team conducts regularly-scheduled calls with members of our project advisory board. This group is made up of staff members from state agencies and advocacy organizations: Hunger Free Vermont, Vermont Foodbank, University of Vermont Center on Rural Addiction, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Vermont Department of Health, Maine Federation of Farmers Markets, and Good Shepherd Food Bank. Calls with this group allow our research team to share our findings with key stakeholders as data is analyzed, while also ensuring we have up-to-date information from the field regarding food access and health services. Their expertise has been valuable in the ongoing development of the previously-mentioned food access and health scales. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, we plan to continue analysis of our 2022 statewide surveys, building upon efforts from the first year of this grant and informing the following two statewide surveys to be completed by the end of the grant period. We anticipate submission of papers analyzing this data to be submitted for journal consideration. We plan to complete the food and healthcare access scales that are currently in development, communicating results and findings with leaders and stakeholders in those respective fields through academic publications, policy briefs, and conference presentations. Our research team will also build an agent-based model to test the relative efficacy and impact of potential food security policies and interventions. Finally, we will begin development and implementation of qualitative interviews with a subset of people identified as vulnerable to food insecurity and health access challenges. These qualitative research activities will deepen our understanding of the links between food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic and health outcomes, including changes in dietary quality, drug use including opioids, and mental health.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The goals of this project are to use multi-year data and analysis to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural food security and health outcomes, and to identify resilience strategies and economic development opportunities to safeguard rural food security and health in the future. These efforts build upon previous work in both Maine and Vermont examining changes in food security status due to the pandemic. The quantitative and qualitative research conducted by our team during this grant period indicates that food insecurity grew and remains higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, with food insecure individuals at high risk for associated health impacts. Our research also highlighted health inequities and the coupling of challenges including food insecurity, lack of healthcare access, isolation, and high cost of medication, exasperating the wellbeing challenges faced by residents in Maine and Vermont. Between April and May 2022, two statewide representative surveys were designed and disseminated to individuals in Vermont and Maine with a total of 1,013 respondents (598 in Maine and 415 in Vermont). These outputs built upon previous rounds of surveys within those respective states, and has resulted in increased understanding of the resulting behavior changes and health outcomes from changes in food security for rural residents.Key findings include a similarly high prevalence of food insecurity to earlier points in the pandemic; ? of respondents engaged in some type of home food production (HFP); half of respondents faced a health care challenged in the previous 12 months, including canceled appointments and troubling finding a timely appointment; and food insecure respondents being significantly more likely to face a variety of health challenges compared to food secure respondents. A report summarizing these findings was published through the University of Vermont's Scholarworks in July 2022. Ongoing data analysis and sharing has continued, with members of our research team presenting to stakeholder groups at meetings and conferences locally and regionally. Two papers, examining dietary quality and the prevalence of home food production, respectively, have been submitted for consideration to peer-reviewed journals, with three additional manuscripts under development. Geospatial analysis is underway to map rural food access and health service sites, building a database of relevant resources and ultimately creating scales to better understand and visualize access to food and mental health and addiction services in Vermont and Maine. In partnership with community stakeholders, we have begun identifying potential policy interventions to model the efficacy of through agent-based modeling.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
McCarthy, Ashley C.; Bertmann, Farryl; Belarmino, Emily H.; Bliss, Sam; Laurent, Jennifer; Malacarne, Jonathan; Merrill, Scott; Schattman, Rachel E.; Yerxa, Kathryn; and Niles, Meredith T., "A 2022 Assessment of Food Security and Health Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic" (2022). College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications. 192.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/calsfac/192
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Angle, Ashleigh; McCarthy, Ashley C.; and Niles, Meredith T., "Home Food Production Before, During and Since Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Northern New England" (2023). College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications. 201.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/calsfac/201
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Niles, Meredith T. et al, "Home food production associated with reduced food insecurity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic among food insecure households." (2023)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Belarmino, Emily H. et al, 'Suboptimal diets identified among adults in two rural states during the COVID-19 pandemic." (2023)
|