Location: Office of The Area Director
Project Number: 6001-10700-001-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: May 1, 2024
End Date: Apr 30, 2029
Objective:
1. Determine causal effects of food and nutrition insecurity on reported healthful food intake associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
2. Identify factors individuals consider when rating their perceived diet quality.
Approach:
1. Effects of food and nutrition insecurity on healthful food intake and cardiometabolic risk factors will be determined using 2 datasets. The first dataset will include the 2 most recent cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) with available dietary data and will be used to test food security causal pathways. The second dataset will be composed of participants from in-person and online survey studies. These studies will be designed specifically to collect data pertaining to nutrition security, limited availability of healthful foods, and utilization barriers to healthful meals, data that are not collected in NHANES. The second dataset will be used to test both food and nutrition security causal pathways. Additionally, this dataset will be used to validate the new perceived diet quality instrument detailed in Objective 2. Participants will be recruited from Arkansas and Mississippi populations of interest. To quantify the causal links between food and nutrition insecurity and healthful dietary intake and cardiometabolic risk for CVD, innovative statistical procedures specifically designed for causal analysis using cross-sectional data will be used.
2. Focus groups will be conducted to explore factors or concepts individuals think about when rating the perceived quality of their diet. Participants will be recruited from Arkansas and Mississippi populations of interest. Focus groups will be conducted virtually using a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions. Audio recordings of the focus groups will be transcribed and coded for content analysis. Relationships between codes will be identified and organize into overarching themes that will be used to understand and describe individual’s thoughts about rating the healthfulness of their diet. Using the overarching themes obtained from these focus groups, questionnaire items that address factors involved in perception of one’s diet quality will be created and tested.
