Addressing Food Insecurity: Plant-Based Food Prescription Program

University of Miami

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Low Income Population; Food Insecurity Among Children; Food Insecurity; Nutrition, Healthy; Nutrition Poor; Health Literacy

Treatments: Other: Plant-Based Nutrition Education; Other: Plant-Based Food Provision (with or without food prescription)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06614920

20240753

Details and patient eligibility

About

Reduce food insecurity by improving plant-based health food consumption, access, health and nutrition literacy and the health of the food-insecure families we serve.

Enrollment: 100 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: Under 99 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants will be all ages 0-99 (all arms)
• Families living under the federal poverty line AND who have food insecurity (all arms except Arm 2 which can include families with income above the federal poverty line who do not have food insecurity).
• Families cared for in either the Pediatric Mobile Clinic, Pediatric, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine or Med-Peds primary care clinics in the UHealth/Jackson Health System/Dade County Street Response.

Exclusion criteria

• Families who are not under the federal poverty line AND are not food insecure (all arms except Arm 2, which will include participants of all socioeconomic statuses and regardless of food security status, with no exclusion criteria in this category).
• Families who are not actively receiving outpatient primary care (all arms).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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100 participants in 2 patient groups

Plant-Based Food Provision + Plant-Based Nutrition Education (dual intervention)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will enroll in one of four study arms based on their eligibility and interest. In Arm 1 (dual intervention- food prescription and nutrition education), we will ask participants to attend 5 nutrition classes where they will be asked to complete one survey and two brief nutrition knowledge tests (one before the class starts and one after the class is finished) each class, one survey every 3 months thereafter and one additional nutrition test 1 year after starting the program. Each class will divide participants by age (detailed in Arm 2 description). Participants in Arm 1 only (dual intervention) will be provided with a food prescription at the end of each class. Participants will bring this food prescription to Village FREEdge, where it will function as a voucher. Each voucher will allow for participants to pick up enough food for 6 meals per person in their household (with household maximum of 5 people)(enough meals for 3 days- 2 meals per person per day).

Treatment:

Other: Plant-Based Food Provision (with or without food prescription)

Other: Plant-Based Nutrition Education

Plant-Based Nutrition Education Only (single intervention 1)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will enroll in one of four study arms based on their eligibility and interest. In Arm 1 (dual intervention- food prescription and nutrition education) and Arm 2 (single intervention 1- nutrition education only) we will ask participants to attend 5 nutrition classes where they will be asked to complete one survey and two brief nutrition knowledge tests (one before the class starts and one after the class is finished) each class, one survey every 3 months thereafter and one additional nutrition test 1 year after starting the program. Each class will divide participants by age. If participants are 14 years old or older, they will listen to a 45-minute plant-based nutrition lecture and engage in a 45-minute interactive activity, including but not limited to plant-based meal preparation. Participants younger than 14 years old will be guided through age-appropriate interactive activities for the full 1.5-2 hours in a nearby classroom.

Treatment:

Other: Plant-Based Nutrition Education