PROGRAM EVALUATION OF THE KŪPUNA FOOD SECURITY COALITION  IN HONOLULU COUNTY:  EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION TO ADDRESS FOOD INSECURITY AMONG OLDER ADULTS

LEE, JIN YOUNG

PROGRAM EVALUATION OF THE KŪPUNA FOOD SECURITY COALITION IN HONOLULU COUNTY: EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION TO ADDRESS FOOD INSECURITY AMONG OLDER ADULTS

Files

LEE_hawii_0085A_11466.pdf (4.47 MB)

Date

2022

Authors

LEE, JIN YOUNG

Advisor

Braun, Kathryn

Department

Public Health

Abstract

According to the U.S. Census, about 5.3 million older adults in the U.S. are food insecure despite the availability of multiple federally supported supplemental food programs. The reality is that this number likely underestimates the number of food-insecure older adults due to inadequate measurement methods. Food insecurity for older adults is a highly complex issue that goes beyond the financial resource constraints captured in the census to include factors at all levels of the Social-Ecological Model. COVID-19 made the problem even worse due to increased demand and reduced accessibility for older adults. Public/non-profit partnerships are a proven way to address this kind of complex social issue. However, there are no published studies that systematically investigated the success of this type of coalition approach in addressing older adult food insecurity. The Kūpuna Food Security Coalition (Coalition) is a community partnership formed in 2020 to address the complex issue of food insecurity among older adults in Honolulu County. This dissertation evaluated the Coalition's approach to addressing food insecurity for older adults and assessed whether their work could be replicated in other communities and whether the approach was scalable to meet demand across broad, diverse geographies. Study 1 evaluated the operating model of the Coalition, which was based on Collective Impact framework. Looking at the successes and lesson learned in the Coalition's strategy and structure, the study found that their approach worked well in addressing food insecurity among older adults in the short term and that this framework could be replicated by other public/non-profit partnerships. Study 2 developed a model, called the Older Adult Food Insecurity Index, to predict the number of food-insecure older adults at a local and national level, addressing a significant gap in available tools. Multiple factors associated with food insecurity for older adults across all levels of the Social-Ecological Model were identified, weighted by relative impact, and combined with publicly available data at a local level to create the predictive model. Using this model to predict the number of older adults in Honolulu County, which was the geographic focus of the Coalition, resulted in the likely number of food insecure older adults being 2.5 times higher than identified in the most recent census. Study 3 leveraged an adequacy performance evaluation approach to assess the scalability of the Coalition's approach, incorporating both cross-sectional and longitudinal assessments relative to the number of food insecure older adults identified in Study 2. This study found that there were no barriers to the scalability of the Coalition's approach to address food insecurity for older adults across geographies, demographics, or changes in market demand. This multi-faceted assessment of the Coalition’s approach, while identifying several opportunities, confirmed that the model was replicable and scalable for other communities and coalitions that want to address the issue of food insecurity for older adults.

Keywords

Aging, Coalition, Food insecurity, Older adults, Program Evaluation

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/103894

Extent

85 pages

Rights

All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.

Collections

Ph.D - Public Health

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