TY - JOUR

T1 - Service awareness among older adults experiencing barriers to food and eating

AU - Vaudin, Anna

AU - Dean, Wesley

AU - Chen, Jie

AU - Sahyoun, Nadine R.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Objective: To explore (1) the services older adults use to address the barriers to food access they face and (2) how they found out about these services. Design: Semistructured, basic descriptive qualitative in-person interviews. Setting: Senior center and participants’ homes. Participants: A convenience sample of 24 older adults recruited from suburban and urban settings. Primarily Black females, living alone, and able to leave home without help. Phenomenon of Interest: Financial and nonfinancial barriers to food access, awareness of services available. Analysis: Codes were assigned to portions of the text in which participants described how they learned about a service. These codes were categorized into one of the 3 larger themes that emerged: (1) intentionally sought by the participant, (2) intentional outreach by the service, and (3) encounters in daily life and environment. Results: Most connections to services were made through encounters in participants’ daily life and environment; for example, word of mouth from family, friends or neighbors; connection through other services; referral from health care professionals; and seeing the service in their neighborhood.Conclusions and Implications: Robust social networks, medical screening, and referral may promote awareness of food assistance services. Future research and outreach should target those who are most isolated.

AB - Objective: To explore (1) the services older adults use to address the barriers to food access they face and (2) how they found out about these services. Design: Semistructured, basic descriptive qualitative in-person interviews. Setting: Senior center and participants’ homes. Participants: A convenience sample of 24 older adults recruited from suburban and urban settings. Primarily Black females, living alone, and able to leave home without help. Phenomenon of Interest: Financial and nonfinancial barriers to food access, awareness of services available. Analysis: Codes were assigned to portions of the text in which participants described how they learned about a service. These codes were categorized into one of the 3 larger themes that emerged: (1) intentionally sought by the participant, (2) intentional outreach by the service, and (3) encounters in daily life and environment. Results: Most connections to services were made through encounters in participants’ daily life and environment; for example, word of mouth from family, friends or neighbors; connection through other services; referral from health care professionals; and seeing the service in their neighborhood.Conclusions and Implications: Robust social networks, medical screening, and referral may promote awareness of food assistance services. Future research and outreach should target those who are most isolated.

KW - community-dwelling older adults

KW - food access

KW - service awareness

KW - social networks

U2 - 10.1016/j.jneb.2023.04.005

DO - 10.1016/j.jneb.2023.04.005

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37389500

AN - SCOPUS:85164365804

VL - 55

SP - 564

EP - 574

JO - Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

JF - Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

SN - 1499-4046

IS - 8

ER -