(P11-020-25) A Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial Aimed to Determine the Feasibility of a Community-Derived Multilevel-Multicomponent Nutrition Intervention: FRESH-EATS

Objectives: Individuals residing in low-income, minority neighborhoods often suffer from disproportionately high levels of obesity and other diet-related health conditions. These disparities are affected by multi-level factors including individual, social cultural, environmental, and political/societal factors. Yet, many previous interventions focused on individual knowledge or behavior changes. To address this critical research gap, the FRESH-EATS project includes multiple intervention components to address multilevel factors that influence food access and dietary behaviors of families in low-income predominantly Black/African American (AA) neighborhoods. The objective is to describe the study protocol of this community-derived multilevel-multicomponent nutrition intervention.

Methods: The FRESH-EATS consists of: (1) Evidence-based hands-on cooking and nutrition education (individual and interpersonal); (2) Trauma-informed family workshops addressing the lack of access to healthy foods (interpersonal and community); (3) Prepaid weekly food delivery and local food pantry information (community and societal); and (4) Community garden utilization and education (community and societal). We will recruit children and caregivers (n=48 dyads) and implement the FRESH-EATS (n=24 dyads) or education-only control (n=24 dyads). Parents/caregivers should be 18 years or older, residents of the target neighborhoods, speak English, and have a child aged 8-12 who can also participate in the study. Dyads who have participated in a similar intervention within the past 6 months will be excluded. Reach/participation, attrition, completion, fidelity, qualitative feedback will be assessed as feasibility benchmarks. Primary outcomes are dietary intake and psychosocial factors such as self-efficacy. Secondary outcomes include anthropometrics and blood pressure. Social connectedness, resilience, adverse childhood experiences, community-level adversity, and perceived food access will also be assessed.

Results: N/A

Conclusions: We anticipate that the FRESH-EATS project is feasible to implement. Feasibility benchmarks and outcome data will be used to refine study protocol and data collection procedures for a larger-scale, fully powered clinical trial.

Funding Sources: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)