Developing a Support Application for Food Pantries (SAFPAS) to Improve Client Access to Healthy Foods & Enhance Emergency Preparedness

Overview and Study Design The overall goal of this application is to develop and test a mobile application to improve food pantry services in low-income areas of Baltimore, increase access to healthier foods to clients, and enhance emergency preparedness and response capacity.

The first part of the study will involve meeting with key stakeholders to develop the Support Application for Food Pantries (SAFPAS) and testing the app for usability. This work will take place in Baltimore and Detroit. The second part is a pilot study in which food pantries located in Baltimore will be randomly selected to receive the SAFPAS app (n=10) or serve as comparison pantries (n=10). The investigators will introduce different features of the app to food bank staff, food pantry managers and staff, and food pantry clients to understand challenges related to using the app for day-to-day tasks and to evaluate the healthiness of the foods clients receive as the main outcome. Finally, the investigators will demonstrate the completed app to additional stakeholders in Baltimore and Detroit to learn more about feasibility and how to improve it.

The findings from this R34 application will be used to support a full-scale clinical trial, which will test the SAFPAS app across multiple cities, and will assess its impact on pantries (i.e., change in food stocking, staff capacity, distribution of healthier foods) and pantry clients (i.e., obesity and dietary intake, and food security). Findings from this study will help us to: 1) produce a functional and acceptable mobile app; 2) provide preliminary data needed to plan a full-scale clinical trial, including demonstrating preliminary efficacy; 3) set appropriate standards for implementation and evaluation; 4) demonstrate the investigators ability to recruit and retain large numbers of food pantries and pantry clients; and 5) identify unexpected challenges of introducing a mobile application in a food pantry setting and help determine potential solutions. For details on these future research plans see the Future Clinical Trial Description document.

Study setting and Collaborations The study will primarily take place in low-income neighborhoods of Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore has 225 food pantries located in churches, schools, etc., all of which receive most of the food supply from the Maryland Food Bank (MFB). The investigators main partner will be the MFB, specifically the Baltimore branch which is the central "hub" for both Western Maryland and Eastern Shore branches. The MFB distributes roughly 40 million meals to food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and faith-based organizations throughout Maryland. The research team has worked with the MFB for more than five years on projects involving food pantries, including Fresh Shelves Healthy Pantries.87 The research team will also partner with various city stakeholders including the Food Policy Director, the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, the Baltimore City Health Department, and the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management (see Letters of Support). Additional formative and feasibility research will also be conducted in Detroit, including with local food pantries and the Gleaners Food Bank.

The study will take place in 6 phases: