Description

This study aims to address kidney health disparities by implementing and evaluating a Food is/as Medicine intervention tailored for up to 20 Veterans with CKD. These community-engaged efforts seek to better understand the interrelation of nutrition, health, and socioeconomic factors affecting kidney related or patient-centered, along with quantitative clinical, outcomes. The long-term goal of this work is to develop and demonstrate community-based interventions or efforts that improve dietary adherence/quality, reduce food insecurity, improve nutrition security, and enhance kidney health outcomes while providing sustainability, scalable insights for broader public/kidney health and VA healthcare policies or programs.

Objectives

Objective 1: Evaluate the short-term impact of culturally and medically tailored food boxes and produce (3-month mid-point):

• Understand Veterans' perceptions of food access, intervention acceptability, education effectiveness, and dietary challenges through semi-structured interviews.
• Investigate participant satisfaction, perceived barriers, and facilitators within the food box program and towards healthy/kidney diet adherence or practices.
• Examine Veterans' nutrition security status and quality of life from baseline to 3-months.

Objective 2: Assess the longitudinal impact and perceived future long-term impact of food boxes (6- month endpoint):

• Investigate Veterans' long-term program experiences, perspectives, satisfaction, and preferences.
• Understand participant confidence, self-efficacy, ability to sustain dietary habits, plans and resources needed post-intervention.
• Examine Veterans' nutrition security status and quality of life from baseline, 3-months, to 6-months.