Giving Healthy Meal Kits and Cooking Lessons to Rural Families with Food Insecurity.

MaineHealth

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Caregiver Mental Health; Child Mental Health; Family Function; Family Functioning; Food Insecurity Among Children; Nutrition; Food Insecurity; Caregiver Distress; Caregiver Stress; Social Emotional Wellness

Treatments: Dietary Supplement: Meal Kit plus Mobile Culinary Medicine Education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06869993

Food and Families

2268160-1 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if providing healthy meal kits to food insecure families can help lessen the social and emotional impacts of food insecurity on kids and their caregivers in rural Maine. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Is receiving healthy meal kits delivered to homes feasible and acceptable to rural Maine families?
2. Does receiving meal kits (along with an app to help learn how to cook the food) improve food insecurity and diet quality in rural Maine families?
3. Does receiving meal kits (along with an app to help learn how to cook the food) improve family function in rural Maine families? We will look at caregivers' stress, family conflict, household chaos, and child emotional-behavioral symptoms.

Participants will:

1. Recieve and prepare a dietitian-designed meal kit with 10 meals per week for 4 weeks.
2. Receive free culinary medicine education via an app that they will continue to have access to after the study ends.
3. Complete a 1-1.5 hour virtual visit at the beginning of and end of the study.

Enrollment: 40 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years of age or older.
• Legal caregiver for a child between the ages of 6-12 with whom they live at least 75% of the time.
• Reside in rural county in Maine as designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
• Endorse food insufficiency within the past month on their screening questionnaire.
• Able to speak and read in English.
• Stable address with the ability to receive packages

Exclusion criteria

• Inadequate access (<5 days/week) to a kitchen with refrigeration and heating elements to prepare meals.
• Food-restrictive diet (i.e., veganism, gluten-free, dialysis-dependent, severe heart failure).
• A household member with any anaphylactic food allergy.
• No access to a smartphone with texting capabilities.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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40 participants in 1 patient group

Participants

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will receive 4 weeks of health meal kits delivered to their homes in addition culinary medicine education via an app. They will also participate in weekly as well as pre-and post-intervention assessments.

Treatment:

Dietary Supplement: Meal Kit plus Mobile Culinary Medicine Education