Community-Engaged Development of a Nutrition Curriculum: The Go Healthy Indigenous-Supported Agriculture Study.

Objective: To understand how Osage Nation community members define healthy eating and develop a corresponding nutrition curriculum through community engagement.

Design: This project comprised a concurrent embedded mixed methods group concept mapping (GCM) study followed by focus group discussions (FGD) to provide feedback on a nutrition curriculum.

Setting: Osage Nation, Oklahoma.

Community-Engaged Development of Strengths-Based Nutrition Measures: The Indigenous Nourishment Scales.

Mainstream approaches to nutrition typically focus on diet consumption, overlooking multi-dimensional aspects of nutrition that are important to American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. To address health challenges faced by AI/AN communities, strengths-based measures of nutrition grounded in community worldviews are needed. In collaboration with AI/AN communities in Baltimore and Minneapolis, we developed the Indigenous Nourishment Scales through three phases.

Evaluating the Association of the Increase in the WIC Cash Value Benefit on the Diversity of MyPlate Fruits and Vegetables Redeemed and Consumed By Children in Low-Income Households.

Background: Fruits and vegetables (FV) are a critical source of nutrients, yet children in the United States are not meeting the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). The monthly FV cash value benefit (CVB) included in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)'s food package to support child FV intake (FVI) received a substantial increase for economic relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: To evaluate how an expansion of the monthly WIC CVB to purchase FV for WIC children ages 1-4 y is associated with diversity in FV redeemed, and how changes in redeemed FV are related to FVI.

Food insecurity in urban American Indian and Alaska Native populations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Food insecurity is an important social determinant of health that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both food insecurity and COVID-19 infection disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly American Indian and Alaska Native communities; however, there is little evidence as to whether food insecurity is associated with COVID-19 infection or COVID-19 preventive behaviors such as vaccination uptake. The purpose of this study was to evaluate associations between food insecurity, COVID-19 infection, and vaccination status among urban American Indian and Alaska Native adults seen at 5 clinics serving urban Native people.

NEFPAT Plus: A Valid and Reliable Tool for Assessing the Nutrition Environment in Food Pantries.

Objective: To develop a consumer nutrition environment assessment tool to assess policy, systems, and environmental initiatives that are implemented in food pantries, which incorporates recent national guidance, and evaluate its validity and reliability.

Setting: Illinois, US.

Design: This study had 4 phases: (1) tool revision, (2) pilot testing, (3) content validity assessment, and (4) interrater and test-retest reliability assessment.

Food Insecurity in Urban American Indian and Alaska Native Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Food insecurity is an important social determinant of health that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both food insecurity and COVID-19 infection disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly American Indian and Alaska Native communities; however, there is little evidence as to whether food insecurity is associated with COVID-19 infection or COVID-19 preventive behaviors such as vaccination uptake. The purpose of this study was to evaluate associations between food insecurity, COVID-19 infection, and vaccination status among urban American Indian and Alaska Native adults seen at 5 clinics serving urban Native people.

Food Systems, Food Sovereignty, and Health: Conference Shares Linkages to Support Indigenous Community Health.

The Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity (CIIHE) at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (OSU-CHS) is a community-academic partnership with Indigenous peoples from Alaska, Hawai'i, and Oklahoma. The CIIHE supports communities to strengthen traditional food practices and food sovereignty and evaluate the impact of those efforts on health. In February 2022, the CIIHE sponsored and hosted a virtual conference to better understand how food sovereignty initiatives can improve health.

Framing an Indigenous Food Sovereignty Research Agenda.

Access to healthy and appealing food is essential for individuals to be able to live a healthy and quality life. For decades, food security has been a priority issue for public health professionals. Food sovereignty expands upon the concept of food insecurity (i.

Food Security and Food Sovereignty: The Difference Between Surviving and Thriving.

Previous research in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities has documented high prevalence of food insecurity. Yet many AI/AN scholars and communities have expressed concerns that the dominant societal conceptions of food security are not reflective of the teachings, priorities, and values of AI/AN communities. Food security initiatives often focus on access to food and, at times, nutrition but little consideration is given to cultural foods, the spirituality carried through foods, and whether the food was stewarded in a way that promotes well-being not just for humans but also for plants, animals, land, and water.

Food Sovereignty and Health: A Conceptual Framework to Advance Research and Practice.

Settler colonialism disrupted traditional Indigenous foodways and practices and created high rates of diet-related disease among Indigenous peoples. Food sovereignty, the rights of Indigenous peoples to determine their own food systems, is a culturally centered movement rooted in traditional Indigenous knowledge. This approach directly intervenes upon systems-level barriers to health, making it an important strategy for health equity.

Measuring Food Security among American Indian and Alaska Native Adults: Validity Evidence Supports the Use of the US Department of Agriculture Module.

Background: Inequities in access, availability, and affordability of nutritious foods produced by settler colonialism contribute to high rates of food insecurity among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) households. Efforts to understand the influences of food security programming among AI/AN individuals in the United States are constrained by the absence of validity evidence for food security assessments for this population.

Objective: This study assessed whether AI/AN adult responses on the Food Security Survey Module provide an accurate assessment of food security prevalence, especially when compared with other racial and ethnic groups.

Distribution of fresh foods in food pantries: challenges and opportunities in Illinois during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The charitable food system distributes free food to clients across the U.S., but many nutrition and health-focused efforts encounter barriers to success, which were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Native opportunities to stop hypertension: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial among urban American Indian and Alaska Native adults with hypertension.

Introduction: American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults experience disproportionate cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality compared to other races, which may be partly attributable to higher burden of hypertension (HTN). Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) is a high-impact therapeutic dietary intervention for primary and secondary prevention of CVD that can contribute to significant decreases in systolic blood pressure (BP). However, DASH-based interventions have not been tested with AI/AN adults, and unique social determinants of health warrant independent trials.

Food Insecurity Screening in Primary Care: Patterns During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Encounter Modality.

Introduction: Screening for food insecurity in clinical settings is recommended, but implementation varies widely. This study evaluated the prevalence of screening for food insecurity and other social risks in telehealth versus in-person encounters during the COVID-19 pandemic and changes in screening before versus after widespread COVID-19 vaccine availability.

Methods: These cross-sectional analyses used electronic health record and ancillary clinic data from a national network of 400+ community health centers with a shared electronic health record.

Development and evaluation of the Food Bank Health and Nutrition Assessment.

Objective: Efforts to improve the nutritional quality and health promotion in the charitable food system have been undertaken. Though methods exist to track these efforts in terms of food banks' inventory, there are not research-tested tools to assess, monitor and influence policy, systems and environmental (PSE) changes. The study objective was to develop and evaluate a novel assessment tool that could be used to evaluate a food bank's efforts to improve the promotion of health and nutritious foods.

Online Food Security Discussion Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Community Groups and Organizations: Content Analysis of Facebook Posts.

Background: The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) population experiences disproportionately higher rates of food insecurity, which is a risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, when compared to white individuals. Novel and effective approaches that address food insecurity are needed for the NHPI population, particularly in areas of the continental United States, which is a popular migration area for many NHPI families. Social media may serve as an opportune setting to reduce food insecurity and thus the risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases among NHPI people; however, it is unclear if and how food insecurity is discussed in online communities targeting NHPI individuals.

Impacts of COVID-19 on a Food Security Study with the Baltimore Native Community.

Urban American Indian/Alaska Native peoples experience disproportionate levels of food insecurity when compared to the general US population. Through a collaborative research partnership between Native American Lifelines of Baltimore, an Urban Indian Health Program, and a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health student-led research team, food security was identified as a priority issue. A sequential explanatory mixed methods study was planned to explore food security and food sovereignty in the Baltimore Native community prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.