Developing a Support Application for Food Pantries (SAFPAS) to Improve Client Access to Healthy Foods & Enhance Emergency Preparedness

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PROJECT SUMMARY Food banks and food pantries are critical community-based institutions for addressing food insecurity, which is associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. The effectiveness and efficiency of food assistance programs are constrained by many factors, including: recruitment and training of of staff/volunteers; meeting client needs for acceptable, healthy choices; and providing real-time information for planning and emergency operations. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated all of these problems and continues to do so. The effective management of food pantries, before, during, and after the pandemic, is a top priority as resources are limited, communications are often decentralized, and the in-house ability to adapt practices to an online setting is nearly non-existent. As well, pantry volunteers, commonly older adults, are both the main support staff at food pantries and the most at risk for severe COVID-19 health effects. Based on substantial preliminary data and more than two decades of experience working to improve Baltimore’s food system, this NHLBI Clinical Trial Pilot Study will develop and pilot a working mobile Support Application for Food PAntrieS (SAFPAS) application (app) to address these challenges. No such app that offers capabilities for staff/volunteer recruitment, training, and scheduling; nutrition education and messaging with clients; a safe form of client choice; and/or bidirectional communications for emergency preparedness and response currently exists. Our formative research with Baltimore food pantry and Maryland Food Bank personnel found high enthusiasm for an app that combines these features, as did our recent national survey of food pantry directors. This study will develop and pilot the app, and evaluate its feasibility and impact on food pantry staff emergency preparedness, stocking, and client uptake of healthful foods and beverages in Baltimore, with the following aims: 1) to develop and optimize a technically stable, functional app to improve food pantry services in Baltimore; 2) to pilot the SAFPAS app with Baltimore-based food pantries and clients, the Maryland Food Bank, and Baltimore’s Emergency Operations Center team, and assess its feasibility; and 3) to evaluate the impact of SAFPAS on the healthiness of foods received by food pantry clients in a sample of 360 low-income urban clients (at baseline), drawn from 20 pantries measured pre- and post-intervention in a randomized controlled pilot trial. Findings will allow us to: 1) produce a functional and acceptable app; 2) provide preliminary data for power calculations for a future full-scale trial; 3) generate and refine impact and process evaluation instruments and set standards for implementation; and 4) establish protocols and demonstrate our ability to recruit and retain food pantries and food pantry clients. We will assess potential scalability of the app by conducting formative and feasibility assessments with food pantry staff and clients in Detroit. The findings from this R34 study will support a full-scale clinical trial that will test a multi-city deployment of the SAFPAS app and assess its impact on food pantry client health outcomes, diet, and food security.