91 - A Needs Assessment of Nutritional Resources and Habits in Urban Immigrant Families to Inform a Community-Based Nutritional Teaching Program

Friday, April 28, 2023

5:15 PM – 7:15 PM ET

Poster Number: 91
Publication Number: 91.15

Deborah Yu, Cohen Children's Medical Center, Little Neck, NY, United States; Zara R. Atal, Cohen Children's Medical Center, Northwell Health, Glen Oaks, NY, United States

Presenting Author(s)

ZA

Zara R. Atal, MD (she/her/hers)

Pediatric Resident
Cohen Children's Medical Center, Northwell Health
Glen Oaks, New York, United States

Co-Author(s)

DY

Deborah Yu, MD (she/her/hers)

Resident Physician
Cohen Children's Medical Center
Little Neck, New York, United States

Background: Community-based nutritional programs are the standard for promoting healthy eating habits. Addressing cost, acceptability, and feasibility is critical to enabling community leaders and stakeholders to facilitate and adopt change in practice, particularly in marginalized groups and low-resource settings. In order to design and implement a nutritional program for urban immigrant families that best addresses their specific needs, we conducted a needs assessment of their current nutritional resources and habits.

Objective:
To conduct a needs assessment in two urban immigrant communities to determine existing nutrition habits and resources available in order to tailor existing community-based nutritional programs to these communities.

Design/Methods:
Our needs assessment consisted of a survey regarding elements of food insecurity among immigrant families living in two large urban neighborhoods in New York City. Participants were recruited via a community-based organization (CBO), Child Center of NY. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from online surveys in English and Spanish during May and June 2022. Questionnaires and language selection were developed in collaboration with the CBO; to reduce survey fatigue, there were twelve items in total. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results:
There were 88 caregiver respondents across sites with 98% of surveys completed in Spanish. The needs assessment took an average of 10 minutes to complete. Participants reported cooking for households of 1 to 8 members (M=3). The most common challenges with providing and preparing meals were cost (73%), deciding what to make (53%), what household members will eat (43%), and not having enough time (16%) or space (9%) to cook. Four people (5%) reported not having kitchenware or appliances (39% use a shared refrigerator); and 5 (6%) reported not knowing how to cook. The majority of respondents also report receiving federal assistance, 61% receive SNAP and 75% receive WIC. The majority of participants (86%) reported walking to purchase groceries. A minority (11%) report using recipes.

Conclusion(s):
Our needs assessment highlighted several factors that can be addressed in partnership with CBOs to adapt existing community-based nutritional programs to better meet the needs of all families in these urban, immigrant communities - for example, programs that account for participants using shared kitchen spaces, not using recipes, having limited kitchen tools or groceries and limited finances to purchase them, as well as lack of time to cook or cooking skills.