Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:In order to be eligible for the program, participants must be eligible for SNAP or enrolled in Medicaid and diagnosed with a diet-related chronic disease, including diabetes, prediabetes, hypertension, and overweight or obesity based on body mass index. We've continued working with Baptist Health Community Outreach. Baptist Health Community Wellness Centers are community-based partnerships with churches, founded with the primary mission of creating healthier communities among Arkansas' uninsured, underinsured and underserved populations. Free services include health education, care coordination, immunizations and screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, flu shots, among others. During this reporting year, we worked with two of their Wellness Centers. One clinic focuses on seniors, housed in a community center with a senior program and congregate meal site. The other is a prenatal clinic, whose monthly pick-up location was the Baptist Health food pantry. Changes/Problems:Though still moving slower than we had hoped, we consider this year to be very successful for our project. We've had no major problems, just some lessons learned. For example, senior centers are great sites for pop-up clinics and incentive redemption/produce distribution because program participants already gather there daily. Asking the prenatal patients to pick up the food pantry has been a little more difficult, since some patients have transportation issues, some zero time, and some don't associate the pantry with the clinic. We've pivoted a bitthis reporting year to offer the produce distribution at the pantry and a prenatal clinic so patients can choose which is more convenient. We are still working to figure out the most efficient process. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?With ournew partnership with Potluck,which started in October to help store and transport produce bags, we have had the capacity to bring on a new clinic site. We have alsocontinued to enroll more patients at all clinics. In two months since this reporting period, we have increased our overall participant numbers from 40to 70, and we are are still actively recruiting and enrolling prental patients.We plan to bring on one moreBaptisth Health Wellness Cliniclocated at a thrid senior center. Our GusNIP team is currently working on a best practices document, anticipating the upcoming conversations we will have with University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to bring on their two clinics that we had planned in the grant. Both UAMS clinics have much higherpatient numbers, but wenow have the capacity to grow because of our new process and partnership for procuring food. (It's still not ideal that participants do not have more choice; but with this slow start, we have had more interaction with participants. We ask for feedback and preferences and do take small request when we can.) We are hoping to enroll at least 150 UAMS patients next year, and also formally request a project extension.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
While we've had a very slow start in Arkansas due to having sales tax on groceries and unable to implement our program as originally intendedto let participants to shop for groceries on their own using an EBT card or voucher, we've picked up momentum at the end of this reporting year. In July we submitted a project change letter to NIFA, which was actually more of a budget shift request, since our goals had not changed. Two things were approved through this process: that we could re-enroll our senior participants after their program year was up in September, and that we could shift money in our budget to cover contract fees to pay a third party, Potluck Inc., to receive a produce order from a vendor, and safely store, sort, and delivery produce bags to the participating clinics. In July we also brought on a prenatal clinic, enrolling in 18 patients in the reporting year. Participants come to the food pantry to pick up their monthly produce and can also receive a bag of non-perishable pantry staples from Baptist Health. Baptist Health Community Outreach also offers nutrition education geared towards pregnantand new mothers to all prenatal patients. Nurses are on-site on distribution day at the pantry to screen patients for their health metrics. The most exciting for this project reporting year was administering the post-surveys for the first group of participating seniors. We enjoyed hearing, firsthand, the impact the program has made on these seniors. While we've yet to compare the health data and surveys, the qualitative data was overwhelmingly positive. One participant commented that her A1C has gone down an entire number, and when her doctor asked her what's changed because he has asked her to eat better for years, she responded to him that this was the first time she had access to healthy foods. They've also talked about how much they enjoyed recipes cards and samples which encouraged them to try new foods.
Publications
|
Progress 09/15/22 to 09/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:In order to be eligible for the program, participants must be eligible for SNAP or enrolled in Medicaid and diagnosed with a diet-related chronic disease, including diabetes, prediabetes, hypertension, and overweight or obesity based on body mass index. In July we began enrolling seniors, at the Southwest Community Center in Litte Rock, with one or more of these diet-elated conditions as the first participants of our produce prescription project. This location is one of Baptist Health's Community Outreach Wellness and Screening sites.Baptist Health Community Wellness Centers are community-based partnerships with churches, founded with the primary mission of creating healthier communities among Arkansas' uninsured, underinsured and underserved populations. Free services include health education, care coordination, immunizations and screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, flu shots, among others. Changes/Problems:While we have had no major changes to our project,we have had a very slow start do to the unexpected complications with sales tax on groceries and challenges with GusNIP funded PPR vouchers at the point-of-sales. Due to this lack of a scalable option, we must wait to bring on ourUniversity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences partners (the Obstetrical Clinic for the Management of Hyperglycemia in Pregnancy and the 12th Street Health and Wellness Center) at a later implementation date. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period we plan to work with more Baptist Health Community Outreach Wellness and Screening Clinics. We are still determined tofind a solution around the tax hurdle, so to have the capacity to enroll more participants who will have choice and options when shopping for fruit and vegetables on their own.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have had an unanticipated slow start with our project. Ideally, our GusNIP PPRparticipants would be able to make produce purchases themselves, using a grocery store loyalty card, a PPR card or digital voucher, or an online purchasing process; however, Arkansas is one of the 13 states that still collect taxes on food. (According to GusNIP funding requirements, "No state or local sales tax shall be collected on any purchase of food made using GusNIP grant incentives.") We have discussed many potential point-of-sale options with various retail providers and with PPR card and coupon companies, asking how they would be able to treat our participants' purchases essentially the same way SNAP EBT purchases are treated, but we have yet to find a workable option. It all goes back to the POS system not being able to remove the taxes on eligible items only. Most of our first year was spent planning, w/ many conversations around sales tax. As we continue to work to solve the implementation hurdle of sales tax on groceries in Arkansas, we narrowed our project start-up to only one clinic site, beginning with Baptist Health's Community Outreach at the Southwest Community Center in Little Rock, AR. Since July 2023, we haveenrolled 22 seniorsand are using our tax-exempt status as a hunger relief non-profit to purchase produce on behalf of the participants. While this set-up is not conducive to large-scale implementation, we are excited to be moving forward. Enrolled participants receive a delivery of fresh produce ($50 worth), at their monthly clinic visits. Evaluation: Since this clinic meets patients where they already gather, and due to the small-scale, we have high participation rate (all participants filled out baseline surveys, monthlyredemption rate is high, and we have a wait list). We are alsoable track health metrics on a monthly basis which is important to this study, andglean participant feedback as we work to find a scalable solution in Arkansas.
Publications
|