Creating Community Gardens to Improve Access Among African Americans: A Partnership Approach

Development and evaluation of food preservation lessons for gardeners: application of the DESIGN process

OBJECTIVE

This study presents the development and evaluation of food preservation lessons for gardeners.

DESIGN

Lessons were developed using the DESIGN process, a nutrition education program planning framework. This study examines the effectiveness of this curriculum at increasing knowledge of proper food preservation practices and increasing participants' confidence in home food preservation, identifies challenges participants experienced with home food preservation and assesses the perceived influence of home food preservation on vegetable intake and aspects of food security. We used the DESIGN process developed by Contento and Koch to develop the curricula and used social cognitive theory to guide the lesson development. Lessons on three types of food preservation (freezing, water bath canning and pressure canning) were developed and presented to adult gardeners. The evaluation consisted of post-lesson surveys and a follow-up survey several months after the lessons.

SETTING

Mid-Michigan, USA.

PARTICIPANTS

Adult gardeners.

RESULTS

Food preservation confidence increased following the lessons. At follow-up, 64 % of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they ate more fruit and vegetables because of preserving food, 57 % of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they spend less money on food due to preserving, while 71 % reported being better able to provide food for themselves and their family. Lastly, 93 % reported feeling better about where their food comes from and wasting less food due to preserving.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides evidence that home food preservation may be beneficial in promoting fruit and vegetable intake and food security among gardeners.

African Americans' perceptions of nutrition interventions: a scoping review

Nutrition education and policy, systems and environmental (PSE) change interventions may be able to address food insecurity and obesity, conditions which are disproportionately experienced by African Americans. Work that seeks to address these disparities and advance social justice should uplift and learn from participant voices, particularly from marginalised groups. This scoping review aimed to summarise the available literature describing African Americans' perceptions of and experiences participating in nutrition interventions. We conducted an electronic literature search with the assistance of a research librarian which encompassed six databases (MEDLINE, PyscINFO, Agricola, ERIC, SocINDEX and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses) and identified thirty-five sources meeting our inclusion criteria. The majority of studies assessing African Americans' satisfaction with interventions examined educational interventions alone, and about half of the included studies assessed satisfaction through quantitative methods alone. The only studies which found participants to be dissatisfied with interventions used qualitative methods and examined interventions providing education alone. Future work should evaluate African Americans' experience with nutrition-focused PSE changes, interventions which may be better able to address racial disparities in obesity and food insecurity. Nutrition educators working with African Americans should also consider evaluating future interventions using qualitative inquiry, to obtain an in-depth understanding of participant experiences with interventions.

Community Gardening Increases Vegetable Intake and Seasonal Eating From Baseline to Harvest: Results from a Mixed Methods Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Gardening has been associated with greater fruit and vegetable intake, but few randomized trials have been conducted.

Objectives

We sought: 1) to determine changes in fruits and vegetable intake combined and separately from baseline (spring) to harvest time (fall), as well as from baseline to winter follow-up, and 2) to identify the mediators (both quantitatively and qualitatively) between gardening and vegetable intake.

Methods

A randomized controlled trial of community gardening was conducted in Denver, Colorado, USA. Post hoc quantitative difference score analysis and mediation analysis were conducted by comparing intervention group participants who were randomized to receive a community garden plot, plants and seeds, and a gardening class with control group participants who were randomized to remain on a waitlist for a community garden plot (n = 243). Qualitative interviews were completed with a subset of participants (n = 34) and analyzed to explore the influences of gardening on diets.

Results

The average age of participants was 41 y, 82% of them were female, and 34% of them were Hispanic. Compared with control participants, from baseline to harvest, community gardeners significantly increased their intake of total vegetables by 0.63 servings (P = 0.047) and garden vegetables by 0.67 servings (P = 0.02) but not combined fruit/vegetable or fruit intake. There were no differences between the groups from baseline to winter follow-up. Community gardening was positively associated with eating seasonally (P = 0.02), which had a significant indirect effect on the association between community gardening and garden vegetable intake (bootstrap 95% CI: 0.002, 0.284). Reasons qualitative participants gave for eating garden vegetables and making dietary changes included the availability of garden produce; emotional attachment with the plants; feelings of pride, accomplishment, and self-reliance; taste and quality of garden produce; trying new foods; cooking and sharing food; and increased seasonal eating.

Conclusions

Community gardening increased vegetable intake through increased seasonal eating. Community gardening should be recognized as an important setting for improving diets.This trial was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT03089177 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03089177).

The spatial distribution of urban community gardens and their associated socio-economic status in Tehran, Iran

Urban community gardens are a type of green space presenting a diverse role in urban systems. They can also be beneficial for solving the matter of food insecurity by providing self-sufficiency and resilience in low-income communities and increasing the continuity of agricultural activities. Even though plenty of research has been conducted around community gardens, there is a noticeable research gap concerning case studies in different geographic contexts, especially in the Middle East. This paper in response to the said gap aims at mapping the spatial distribution of community gardens and their socio-economic attributes in Tehran, Iran. A methodology consisting of semi-structured interviews, qualitative and descriptive analysis along with tools such as ArcGIS was employed and secondary data were obtained from various sources such as the Tehran statistical yearbook of the year 2020. The results demonstrate that currently there are a total of 26 community gardens in Tehran and they run based on governmental funds and support with a strong educational motive backing them up. There is also an evident geographical distribution imbalance in terms of gardens placement with them mostly being present in the southern part of the city, while in the northern districts the idea of community gardens has almost been nonexistent. Only districts 22, 8, and 7 among northern districts in Tehran have community gardens. In the southern part, district 19 includes the majority of gardens having seven in total. In short, gardens are mainly placed in areas with lower average land prices, median household income, and higher education graduates.

Cultivating Community Resilience With Agency and Sociality in Gardens for Health and Healing

Communities must develop ever greater resilience as they face the climate emergency and concomitant health and food system challenges. Sustainable food systems research tends to adopt broad and often theoretical social-ecological systems perspectives on resilience. Models theorize that community self-organization for mobilizing change and agency in taking planned action are key processes for community resilience. Empirically, however, how individuals come together to engage in collective action for community resilience remains little explored. In this research, we examine strategies for resilience employed by 19 participants with multiple chronic health conditions in Gardens for Health and Healing, a community-based participatory research project conducted in southeast Wyoming. Through random assignment, participants either received a home garden or designed their own 16-week wellbeing program from a menu of community health and food systems services (e.g., cooking classes, farmers' market gift certificates, home garden). Using a pre-post wellbeing survey, interviews, and 14 months of ethnographic research, we explored the role of choice—or agency—for participants' wellbeing. Survey results suggest that receiving a garden more greatly benefitted participants' physical health while designing and implementing a wellbeing plan more greatly benefitted mental health. Qualitative results find that participants in both the garden and menu conditions identified their intervention as empowering them to take action to improve their own health and wellbeing. Participants attributed their wellbeing less to what condition they were in (garden or menu), and more to the relational processes they engaged in through the project. These processes included bringing the family together; associating with friends, neighbors, and colleagues; caring for garden environments; and engaging with the community-based organization that supported both the gardens and the wellbeing plans. We find that this sociality can help promote and explain a move from individual wellbeing and agency to the collective forms of agency and self-organization necessary to cultivate community resilience for sustainable food systems.

Nutrition Interventions Addressing Structural Racism: A Scoping Review

African Americans experience high rates of obesity and food insecurity in part due to structural racism, or overlapping discriminatory systems and practices in housing, education, employment, health care, and other settings. Nutrition education and nutrition-focused policy, systems, and environmental changes may be able to address structural racism in the food environment. This scoping review aimed to summarize the available literature regarding nutrition interventions for African Americans that address structural racism in the food environment and compare them to the "Getting to Equity in Obesity Prevention" framework of suggested interventions. An electronic literature search was conducted with the assistance of a research librarian encompassing 6 databases-MEDLINE, PyscINFO, Agricola, ERIC, SocINDEX, and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. A total of 30 sources were identified detailing interventions addressing structural barriers to healthy eating. The majority of nutrition interventions addressing structural racism consisted of policy, systems, and/or environmental changes in combination with nutrition education, strategies focused on proximal causes of racial health disparities. Only two articles each targeted the "reduce deterrents" and "improve social and economic resources" aspects of the framework, interventions which may be better suited to addressing structural racism in the food environment. Because African Americans experience high rates of obesity and food insecurity and encounter structural barriers to healthy eating in the food environment, researchers and public health professionals should address this gap in the literature.

Community gardens and wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations: a thematic review

The aim of the thematic review is to document the effects of community gardens on wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations. We searched for articles published between 1980 and 2017 in major databases resulting in the inclusion of 51 articles. Vulnerable populations included, amongst others, ethnic minorities and refugees, socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods or low-income or food insecure families. Our findings suggest that community garden participation may have a positive impact on physical health, such as reducing body weight and hypertension, and increasing physical activity and food knowledge. However, findings relating to community gardens and their potential to enhance food security were inconsistent. Furthermore we found that community gardens can have a positive influence both at the individual level (i.e. self-esteem, independence, personal control, etc.), particularly for refugees; the relational and social level (i.e. relationships, social connections, community and neighbourhood). Community garden participation have the potential to enhance wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations. However, two articles in our review presented potential food safety concerns related to community gardens, indicating that, particularly in urban settings, attention must be given to minimizing potential food safety concerns, e.g. by using raised garden beds. Based on this review, we recommend that further research and evaluation on non-US-based community gardens is carried out, as community gardens are practiced globally but there is little research to document the effects of community gardens on wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations outside of the USA.

Home gardening and associations with fruit and vegetable intake and BMI

OBJECTIVE

To understand who engages in home gardening and whether gardening is associated with fruit and vegetable intake and weight status.

DESIGN

A national cross-sectional survey.

SETTING

Online survey panel in the USA.

PARTICIPANTS

Adults aged 18-75 years representing the US population with respect to gender, age, race/ethnicity, income and geographic region (n 3889).

RESULTS

Approximately 30 % of survey respondents reported growing edible plants in a home garden. Gardeners were more likely to be White or Asian, employed, have higher income, be married, have children in the household and live in rural areas. Gardeners were less likely to be obese and more likely to meet US dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption. In multivariable analyses, home gardens remained associated with fruit and vegetable intake and BMI when controlling for a range of socio-demographic characteristics and level of rurality.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study identifies who is gardening in the USA and provides useful information for public health efforts to increase gardening as a nutrition intervention. Future research should examine the benefits of home gardening and interventions to increase home gardening using more rigorous designs.

Examining Shopping Patterns, Use of Food-Related Resources, and Proposed Solutions to Improve Healthy Food Access Among Food Insecure and Food Secure Eastern North Carolina Residents

In the Southern United States (U.S.), food insecurity rates are higher in rural (20.8%) versus urban communities (15%). Food insecurity can exacerbate diet-related disease. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine differences in the use of food-related community resources and potential solutions proposed among food insecure versus food secure residents. A community survey (n = 370) was conducted in rural eastern North Carolina, with questions pertaining to food security status and food-related resources. The IBM SPSS Statistics software and SAS software were used to examine differences in food-related resources, and qualitative data analysis was used to examine differences in solutions offered between food insecure and food secure participants. Of the 370 respondents, forty-eight-point-six percent were classified as food insecure. Food insecure participants were more likely to report shopping for groceries at a convenience/discount store, less likely to use their own vehicle for transportation, and less likely to purchase food from local producers. Food insecure participants were more likely to suggest solutions related to reducing the cost of healthy food, while food secure participants were more likely to suggest educational or convenience-related interventions.

Placemaking in Action: Factors That Support or Obstruct the Development of Urban Community Gardens

The paper examines factors that support or obstruct the development of urban community garden projects. It combines a systematic scholarly literature review with empirical research from case studies located in New Zealand and Germany. The findings are discussed against the backdrop of placemaking processes: urban community gardens are valuable platforms to observe space-to-place transformations. Following a social-constructionist approach, literature-informed enablers and barriers for the development of urban community gardens are analysed against perceived notions informed by local interviewees with regard to their biophysical and technical, socio-cultural and economic, and political and administrative dimensions. These dimensions are incorporated into a systematic and comprehensive category system. This approach helps observe how the essential biophysical-material base of the projects is overlaid with socio-cultural factors and shaped by governmental or administrative regulations. Perceptual differences become evident and are discussed through the lens of different actors.

What gardens grow: Outcomes from home and community gardens supported by community-based food justice organizations

Supporting home and community gardening is a core activity of many community-based organizations (CBOs) that are leading the food justice movement in the U.S. Using mixed methods across multiple action-research studies with five food justice CBOs, this paper documents myriad layers of benefits that gardening yields. Our participatory methods included conducting extensive case studies with five CBOs over five years; quantifying food harvests with 33 gardeners in Laramie, Wyoming, and surveying them about other gardening outcomes (20 responded); and conducting feasibility studies for assessing health impacts of gardening with two of the five CBOs, both in Wyoming. Analyses of these diverse data yielded four categories of gardening benefits: (1) improving health; (2) producing quality food in nutritionally meaningful quantities; (3) providing cultural services; and (4) fostering healing and transformation. Examining these results together illustrates a breadth of health, food, and cultural ecosystem services, and social change yields of home and community food gardening in these communities. It also points to the need to support CBOs in enabling household food production and to future research questions about what CBO strategies most enhance access to and benefits of gardening, especially in communities most hurt by racism and/or insufficient access to fresh food.