Petresin Tamara, Any Marciane, Shujauddin Nayssam, Annis Angela, Haines Jess
Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada.
10C Shared Space, Guelph, Canada.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Jun 4;25(1):2086. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23356-1.
Food insecurity remains a critical issue in Canada, with 15.6% of households affected. Food access, an important component of food security, reflects the ability of individuals to secure food. This pilot study aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary impact of five co-designed interventions designed to improve nutritious food access in the Onward Willow neighbourhood of Guelph, ON.
Thirteen Community Advisors worked with University of Guelph researchers and used co-design to develop, implement, and pilot test five interventions to improve food access: community cafés, food skills workshops, grocery gift cards, gardening materials and workshops, and transportation support. The interventions were pilot tested with 159 community members, and feasibility and acceptability were assessed through surveys and interviews. Preliminary impact was assessed through quantitative pre-post or post-only Likert-scale survey measures.
Findings show that the interventions were feasible and acceptable as all interventions were implemented per protocol and participant satisfaction was high across all interventions. Post-only evaluations identified that participants perceived that the community cafés helped to increase community connection and that the transportation support made it easier to have healthy foods available in their home. Pre-post evaluations revealed that the food skills workshops improved participants' sense of community with a medium effect size (median = 4.12 [IQR 3.87-4.47] to 4.12 [IQR 3.91-4.87], p = .04, r = .33) and that the gardening materials and workshops resulted in increased fruit and vegetable availability with a large effect size (median = 3.00 [IQR 2.00-3.00] to 4.00 [IQR 3.00 to 4.00], p = .04, r = .78). Grocery gift cards did not result in any significant changes in food access outcomes.
Interventions that directly engage communities in creating solutions can be feasible, acceptable, and potentially effective. Future research is needed to explore long-term impacts of these interventions on diet quality and broader health outcomes.
粮食不安全仍是加拿大的一个关键问题，15.6%的家庭受到影响。食物获取是粮食安全的一个重要组成部分，反映了个人获取食物的能力。这项试点研究旨在评估五项共同设计的干预措施在安大略省圭尔夫市前进柳树社区改善营养食物获取方面的可行性、可接受性和初步影响。
13名社区顾问与圭尔夫大学的研究人员合作，采用共同设计的方法来开发、实施和试点测试五项改善食物获取的干预措施：社区咖啡馆、食物技能工作坊、杂货店礼品卡、园艺材料和工作坊以及交通支持。这些干预措施在159名社区成员中进行了试点测试，并通过调查和访谈评估了可行性和可接受性。通过定量的前后对比或仅事后李克特量表调查措施评估初步影响。
研究结果表明，这些干预措施是可行且可接受的，因为所有干预措施均按方案实施，且所有干预措施的参与者满意度都很高。仅事后评估发现，参与者认为社区咖啡馆有助于增强社区联系，交通支持使他们在家中更容易获得健康食品。前后评估显示，食物技能工作坊以中等效应量提高了参与者的社区意识（中位数从4.12[四分位间距3.87 - 4.47]提高到4.12[四分位间距3.91 - 4.87]，p = 0.04，r = 0.33），园艺材料和工作坊以较大效应量提高了水果和蔬菜的可得性（中位数从3.00[四分位间距2.00 - 3.00]提高到4.00[四分位间距3.00至4.00]，p = 0.04，r = 0.78）。杂货店礼品卡并未导致食物获取结果出现任何显著变化。
直接让社区参与制定解决方案的干预措施可能是可行、可接受且潜在有效的。未来需要开展研究，以探索这些干预措施对饮食质量和更广泛健康结果的长期影响。
