In-Depth Qualitative Interviews to Explore Healthy Environment Strategies in Food Pantries in the Western United States.

Background: Food insecurity and chronic disease are compounded by poverty. A growing number of low-income Americans obtain food regularly from food pantry agencies to combat food insecurity. Evidence demonstrates that food environments may affect healthy dietary behaviors. Food pantry environmental interventions may improve diet quality of low-income, food insecure populations by encouraging healthy food choices.

Objective: The two a priori exploratory research questions were: What strategies do food pantries and food banks undertake to implement healthy environments affecting the physical space or how clients are treated; and, What challenges do pantries and food banks face during these efforts?

Design: Interview data were collected March through May 2016 via in-depth telephone interviews and respondents were recruited by purposive and snowball sampling.

Participants And Settings: Respondents were 43 key informants who represented food bank distributors (n=16), food pantries (n=14), community partners (n=6), and antihunger advocates (n=2) within the 13 western US states.

Main Outcome Measures: Strategies to improve the healthfulness of food pantry environments were defined and their corresponding processes described.

Statistical Analyses Performed: A thematic and descriptive analysis approach was used to elucidate healthy environment strategies. Data were analyzed by inductive modeling and network application of descriptive process codes to address the research question.

Results: Seven strategies to address the emotional and physical dimensions of a food pantry environment were identified and described. Associated challenges (n=12), characteristics of initiation (n=9), and evaluation methods (n=7) were revealed.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that these strategies overlap in novel ways and further examination is warranted. Future quantitative research should assess the prevalence of these strategies in a larger sample of food pantries.