Educators' reports of food acquisition practices used by limited-resource individuals to maintain food sufficiency

Family Economics and Nutrition Review, Spring, 2002 by Kathryn M. Kempson, Debra Palmer Keenan, Puneeta Sonya Sadani, Sylvia Ridlen, Nancy Scotto Rosato

Food security has been defined as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life [and] includes, at a minimum, the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (e.g., without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies)" (Anderson, 1990).

Food security, hunger, and food insufficiency have been broadly studied (Ahluwalia, Dodds, & Baligh, 1998; Alaimo, Briefel, Frongillo, & Olson, 1998; U.S. House Select Committee on Hunger, 1990). Research protocols on food acquisition, however, usually restrict questioning to shopping practices used in traditional shopping venues (USDA, 1997; U.S. House Select Committee on Hunger, 1990), particular populations such as the elderly, or specific practices such as food budgeting (Dinkins, 1997; Kendall, Olson, & Frongillo, 1998; Wolfe, Olson, Kendall, & Frongillo, 1996). Few studies have explicitly researched the practices that limited-resource individuals use to obtain food and have considered that food acquisition may occur in nontraditional venues (Ahluwalia et al., 1998; Hamelin, Habicht, & Beaudry, 1999; Olson, Rauschenbach, Frongillo, & Kendall, 1997; Petchers, Chow, & Kordisch, 1989). Reporting accurate data--including the difficulties some Americans experience in getting enough food to eat--is critical for nutrition programs and policies (Carlson, Andrews, & Bickel, 1999).

Nutrition educators who work regularly with limited-resource individuals may have strong relationships with their program participants and therefore be keenly aware of the practices their clients use to maintain food sufficiency.

These educators--who may be accessed with greater ease, less time, and with lower cost--may be a reliable source for information pertaining to the limited-resource individuals they serve. Our research used this alternative source for information about food acquisition practices of limited-resource individuals.

Therefore, a study was designed to interview all EFNEP and FSNEP nutrition educators in New Jersey to identify the practices that their program participants reported using to maintain food sufficiency. In addition to identifying these practices, our other goal was to distinguish which practices posed risks such as those related to food safety.

Methods

Subject Selection and Data Collection

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews, approved by the Rutgers Institutional Review Board, were conducted with all 51 EFNEP and FSNEP educators throughout the State. This convenience, nonrandomized sample, representing a single State, consisted of 18 professionals and 33 paraprofessionals who had worked for either of the programs for at least 6 months. The interviews were conducted between September 1999 and January 2000 by a research team of two faculty members and two research assistants. Most interviews were completed in person and during work hours; three interviews were conducted via telephone because of inclement weather.

During the interviews, educators were asked to share stories about practices their program participants had discussed regarding the means they used to maintain food sufficiency. To focus the stories, the interviewers asked these questions in the order in which they are listed:

* Think back to the classes that you have taught for EFNEP or FSNEP. What are common things that people have said that they do in order to get through the month with enough food?

* What things have people said they did to get through the month with enough food that surprised you?

* What things did people do to avoid running out of food, that when they obtained the food, it was unsafe or risky?

* What things have people done to avoid running out of food that seemed to be, or actually were, illegal?

The interviewer used other open-ended questions to gather additional details, and the interviewer who was not questioning the educator took extensive notes. Interviews were audiotaped. However, one educator preferred not to be audiotaped, so interviewer notes substituted for the transcript. At the end of each interview, educators were asked about their EFNEP/FSNEP work history and personal demographics.

Data Analysis

Verbatim transcripts of the audiotaped interviews were reviewed for accuracy and compared with the interview notes. Individual food acquisition practices were identified and physically cut from transcript copies. The four members of the research team independently used the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to organize into groups those practices that shared similar strategies of acquiring food. The researchers met to compare, contrast, and resolve differences, and then used the same approach to organize practices into even broader categories that seemed to depict adequately the common themes of food acquisition. In the same manner, practices were examined to determine which ones were viable or questionable.

The researchers defined questionable practices as those that may have posed a food safety, nutritional, physical, financial, legal, or regulatory risk to the individuals who used them. To ensure the validity of these definitions, a fifth researcher, who was familiar with the literature in this area, carefully reviewed all findings and reported any inconsistencies between the literature and researchers' classifications. Data classification was performed with the vision that this work would form a portion of the basis of a grounded theory concerning practices that limited-resource individuals use to maintain food sufficiency (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). In turn, this information could be used by nutrition educators to tailor messages and by policymakers to examine practices that put individuals at risk for food insecurity.