Food Insecurity

Part 1: Work with your chosen family, create a meal plan in which you detail opportunities for a selected family member who has Type 1 Diabetes (10-year-old son) to gain adequate access to appropriate, affordable food for 1 week. 

Your plan must address:

• Appropriate and realistic estimated budget
• Shopping locations; include food banks within a 5-mile radius
• Meal storage 
• Meal preparation
• Transportation means, routes, and timing
• Support services
• Healthy meal planning apps that may be useful for the individual or family (e.g., USDA MyPlate)
• The individual’s medical conditions and cultural preferences 
• Available community resources
• Referrals to community resources, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and/or Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Food and Nutrition Service

Review the plan, related education and health counseling with all family members (the 2 parents and 10-yr-old son) in the discussion.

Help the family work with community agencies in their efforts to obtain nutritional food (e.g., SNAP, WIC, other). 

Provide a copy of the meal plan to the individual and family.

Evaluate the feasibility of your meal planning by contacting the individual/family in person. Inquire as to how the meal plan worked. Was it useful? Were they able to stay within budget and find all the items they were looking for? If not, were they able to find substitutes that were nutritionally sound? Problem-solve and provide alternatives during this evaluation. 

Write a 500-word summary of your interactions with the individual and/or family. Include your detailed meal plan and outcomes. As part of your summary, discuss the interprofessional nature of working with families to address food insecurity (e.g., consider agencies that you referred the family to and/or you assisted the family to access). 

Part 2: Defining the needs of a vulnerable population is key to providing the best care.

Research 3 rural populations in California.

Respond to the following in a minimum of 170 words: 

• What was most surprising to you about the demographics and social determinants of health (SDOH) in your selected locations? Why was it surprising? 
• Using the definition of underserved in which, “Underserved relates to limited access to services that are accessible, acceptable, and affordable, including healthcare” (CDC, 2022), what services were limited, difficult to access, unacceptable, or unaffordable to the patient population? 
• What relationships do you see between the SDOH and people who are medically and/or socially underserved in your selected locations?