Date of Award

2020-01-01

Degree Name

M.P.H.

Department

Public Health

Advisor(s)

Maria Duarte-Gardea

Second Advisor

Leah Whigham

Abstract

Grocery stores can provide a conducive environment for interventions targeting healthy eating and access to health services, particularly in low-income communities. Nationally, several organizations have implemented grocery store interventions and have shown impact on perceptions of purchasing nutritious food, especially by raising awareness of fruits and vegetables. However, most of those programs have not been implemented in a coordinated manner despite being delivered in the same location. Collaboration of local health promotion organizations with grocery stores could increase consumers' access to and selection of healthy foods, as well as access to and use of services.

This evaluation of the In-Store Programming and Outreach Coalition (IPOC) uses first-person accounts from coalition members and a thematic analysis. To our knowledge this is the first qualitative study assessing the effect of such a coalition.

In this study, six coalition members from organizations delivering nutrition education, health screenings, and benefits enrollment (WIC and SNAP) provide their perspectives about the IPOC strengths, challenges, and recommendations. The strongest themes were the benefits of partnership, collaboration, and increased number of people reached, as well as a need for clear leadership and increased coordination.

In conclusion, we recommend the coalition identify a leader or leadership team that will act as a liaison for the partnering organizations. We also encourage future efforts to focus on designing quantifiable methods to assess the impact of the coalition on increasing access to and selection of healthy food, as well as access to benefits and health care.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

62 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Dennis Nyachoti

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