Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 25, 2022
Date Accepted: Sep 22, 2022
Changes in food insecurity among individuals using a telehealth and nutrition platform: a longitudinal study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Food Insecurity is a complex public health problem affecting many individuals in the United States. Digital health interventions that promote behavior change and provide access to affordable and healthy food may help to alleviate food insecurity.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to characterize users of Foodsmart, a telehealth and nutrition platform, with food insecurity and to evaluate changes in diet and food insecurity.
Methods:
We retrospectively analyzed data collected from 4,595 adults who used Foodsmart between February-October 2021. Participants self-reported their diet, demographics, biometrics, and food insecurity status. We examined baseline characteristics of participants by food insecurity status, associations between characteristics and baseline food insecurity, and changes in diet quality and food insecurity status.
Results:
We found that 16% of participants were food insecure at baseline. Among participants who were food insecure at baseline, 61% improved their nutrition and 29% responded that they were food secure at follow-up, with an increasing percentage achieving food security with longer enrollment time.
Conclusions:
Telehealth and nutrition platforms may help users improve household food security.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.