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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Food security and nutrition

Meals on Wheels and Rural Communities, with Carter Florence and Shon Gress
An episode of the Exploring Rural Health podcast featuring Carter Florence, DrPH, MPH, Vice President of Programs with Meals on Wheels America, and Shon Gress, CEO and Executive Director of Meals on Wheels Guernsey County. Focuses on the benefits of the program, the impact of braided funding, and how rural stakeholders can get involved.
Date: 08/2023
Type: Audio
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Expanding Programmatic Reach Through Freeze and Thaw Meal Programs
Presents the strategy of St. Mary's Food Bank in Northern Arizona to serve summer and afterschool meals in a rural area covering a large geographic portion of the state. Discusses distribution methods, procurement and menu planning, transportation, staff training, and day-to-day operations.
Date: 07/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: No Kid Hungry
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Results of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service-Administered School Food Authority Survey II on Supply Chain Disruption and Student Participation
Provides 2022-2023 survey data on how supply chain disruptions have impacted school meal operations. Discusses common supply chain challenges, vendor participation issues, changes in food and labor costs, student participation in school meal programs, and more. Includes regional as well as rural versus non-rural snapshots of the survey data.
Date: 07/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: USDA Food and Nutrition Service
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Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report 2023
Provides national and state findings on children's summer nutrition program utilization in the summer of 2022. Includes policy discussions related to expanding access and improving participation in summer food programs in rural areas via non-congregate meal options.
Date: 07/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Food Research & Action Center
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State Differences in Recommended Components of Care Received During Postpartum Visits for Rural and Urban Residents, 2016-2019
Policy brief measuring state-level differences in receipt of recommended postpartum care components for urban and rural residents, using data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Features statistics on the median number of postpartum care components with breakdowns by state and rurality, and state-level maps with shadings showing frequency of screening for depression, smoking, abuse, and counseling for contraception, eating and exercise, and birth spacing.
Author(s): Julia D. Interrante, Phoebe Chastain, Katy Backes Kozhimannil
Date: 07/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
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Pennsylvania Summer Food Service Program Sites, by Rural and Urban County
County-level map showing locations of USDA Summer Food Service Program meal sites, with shadings indicating rural or urban counties.
Date: 06/2023
Type: Map/Mapping System
Sponsoring organization: Center for Rural Pennsylvania
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Development and Evaluation of the Delivery-Based HEALED Produce Rx Program for Uninsured Patients With Diabetes in Rural Eastern North Carolina
A program evaluation brief that provides an overview of the Healthy Eating and Active Lifestyle to Enhance Diabetes management (HEALED) program that surveyed patients in 2019 and then delivered plant-based foods to 40 participants as a part of a produce prescription (PRx) program in 2021. Reports on how PRx programs and related resources such as cooking instructions can positively impact diabetes patients. Discusses the importance of performing a needs assessment, pilot programming, and a formative evaluation in rural and underserved programs to remove food access barriers such as lack of transportation and involve participants in their own wellness journeys.
Author(s): Lauren R. Sastre, Brandon Stroud, Elisa Smith, Khadijah Hendrix, Olivia McBride
Citation: Preventing Chronic Disease, 20
Date: 06/2023
Type: Document
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How Often Do Households in the North Central Region Run out of Food?
Provides 2022 data on the percentage of households in the North Central Region who run out of food before they have funds to purchase groceries. Examines households by frequency of food insecurity, specific North Central Region state, race, marital status, income, education, and rural, urban, or suburban location.
Author(s): Antara Chowdhury
Date: 06/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: North Central Regional Center for Rural Development
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The Dakota 10: School Nutrition Success With Shared Services
Provides an overview of 10 rural school districts in South Dakota that created a shared services model to strengthen their nutrition programs. Describes the process of utilizing grant funds to build infrastructure and create plans that sustain a shared services model.
Date: 05/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: No Kid Hungry
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Characterizing Social Insecurity in a Rural North Carolina Emergency Department
Results of a study exploring, characterizing, and quantifying the social insecurity profile of emergency department patients at a rural teaching hospital in southeastern North Carolina with a large Native American population. Uses data from a survey questionnaire administered in May and June 2018, focusing on food insecurity, transportation insecurity, and exposure to violence.
Author(s): Elizabeth Gignac, Godwin Y. Dogbey, Aleksandr Pevtsov, et al.
Citation: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 24(3), 538–546
Date: 05/2023
Type: Document
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