Older people who live in rural areas are more likely to experience disparities in food security and proper nutrition and have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than their urban counterparts. Despite the existence of a robust emergency food system — Minnesota, for example, has around 600 food shelves across the state — many older adults in rural areas do not take advantage of food-assistance services which could help improve their nutritional health and cardiovascular outcomes.
With a new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) researcher Patrick Brady seeks to address these disparities. Brady, a postdoctoral researcher whose previous research has focused on what he calls “the intersection of rurality and aging,” will use the two-year training grant to investigate barriers that impede older, rural people from accessing local food resources.
“The emergency food system serves as a safety net for older adults who are ineligible for or underserved by government food assistance programs, but there are barriers to accessing this resource — and it is particularly underutilized by older adults living in non-metropolitan areas,” Brady says. “By working with partners in the emergency food system, interviewing rural, older adults, and conducting other research, findings from this project will inform interventions in the emergency food system to enhance food and nutrition security, improve dietary intake, and benefit rural, older adults whose cardiovascular fitness may be linked to the low availability and high cost of health foods they face.”
The emergency food system consists of food banks, which function as distribution centers that send food to smaller, client-facing organizations like food pantries or food shelves. Though many food pantries and food banks receive substantial support from the government, the emergency food system is a network of independently operated nonprofit organizations that face many challenges to serving their communities. “Every food shelf is different,” Brady observes. “They can vary wildly, from just a closet in a church basement to a large operation that looks and feels like a grocery store.”
Whatever their size or design, however, Brady says social stigma remains one of the key challenges impeding use of food shelves. “Receiving charitable food assistance is heavily stigmatized in the U.S., and that may be particularly true in rural communities where the populations are smaller. Transportation and mobility are another challenge rural, older people confront in accessing a local food pantry,” he says. “The way we address these barriers may be different in a rural area versus an urban setting, and that’s why I’m looking forward to examining these local systems and learning what specific barriers people face in different communities.”
During the two-year training phase, Brady will complete a comprehensive training plan that includes applied expertise in community-engaged research, intervention development and testing, and dietary and nutrition assessment methods. Once this work is completed and an intervention strategy is developed, Brady plans to work with partners in the community to develop a pilot program to test the effectiveness of the interventions.
He plans to disseminate the study’s findings via a network of partners, including University of Minnesota Extension, Hunger Solutions, and the network of food banks and food pantries across Minnesota.
“When we produce recommendations, we don’t want it to just sit in academia,” Brady says. “We want it to get out there in the community where it can hopefully make a difference.”
Brady’s mentors on the project include SPH Professors Melissa Laska, Joe Gaugler, and Lisa Harnack, and Trish Olson from UMN Extension. SPH Associate Professor Carrie Henning-Smith serves as an unofficial mentor on rural issues and working in rural communities.
Brady is also working with partners from Bemidji Community Food Shelf, Heaven’s Table Food Shelf, Hunger Solutions Minnesota, Channel One Regional Food Bank, and the Minnesota Association of Area Agencies on Aging on this project.
