Patients receiving a POC showed significant improvement in 3 of 5 clinical outcomes compared with those without the tool, and those with more fully completed forms had significant improvement in 2 of 5 clinical outcomes compared with those with partially completed forms.

Objective: The objective of the current study was to determine if patients of a large health care system in Detroit who self-identify as food insecure live further away from healthy grocery stores compared to food secure patients. Secondly, we explored whether food insecurity and distance to healthy grocery stores is related to ecological measures of vehicle availability in the area of residence. Design: A secondary data analysis which uses baseline data from a pilot intervention/feasibility study. Setting: Detroit, Michigan, USA. Participants: Patients of Henry Ford Health System were screened for food insecurity to determine eligibility for a pilot intervention/feasibility study (i.e., Henry’s Groceries for Health), conducted through a collaboration with Gleaners Community Foodbank of Southeastern Michigan. Only patients residing in Detroit city limits (including Highland Park and Hamtramck) were included in the secondary analysis. Of the 1,100 patients included in the analysis, 336 (31%) were food insecure. Results: After accounting for sociodemographic factors associated with food insecurity, we did not find evidence that food insecure patients lived further away from healthier grocery stores, nor was this modified by ecological measures of vehicle access. However, some neighborhoods were identified as having a significantly higher risk of food insecurity. Conclusions: Food insecure patients in Detroit are perhaps limited by social and political determinants and not their immediate neighborhood geography or physical access to healthy grocery stores. Future research should explore the complexity in linkages between household socioeconomic factors, sociocultural dynamics, and the neighborhood food environment.

Background Food insecurity (FI) is a significant public health problem. Possible sequelae of prolonged food insecurity include kidney disease, obesity, and diabetes. Our objective was to assess the feasibility of a partnership between Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) and Gleaners Community Foodbank of Southeastern Michigan to implement and evaluate a food supplementation intervention initiated in a hospital outpatient clinic setting. Methods We established a protocol for using the Hunger Vital Signs to screen HFHS internal medicine patients for food insecurity and established the data sharing infrastructure and agreements necessary for an HFHS-Gleaners partnership that would allow home delivery of food to consenting patients. We evaluated the food supplementation program using a quasi-experimental design and constructing a historical comparison group using the electronic medical record. Patients identified as food insecure through screening were enrolled in the program and received food supplementation twice per month for a total of 12 months, mostly by home delivery. The feasibility outcomes included successful clinic-based screening and enrollment and successful food delivery to consenting patients. Our evaluation compared healthcare utilization between the intervention and historical comparison group during a 12-month observation period using a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis. Results Of 1691 patients screened, 353 patients (20.9%) met the criteria for FI, of which 340/353 (96.3%) consented, and 256/340 (75.3%) were matched and had data sufficient for analysis. Food deliveries were successfully made to 89.9% of participant households. At follow-up, the intervention group showed greater reductions in emergency department visits than the comparison group, −41.5% and −25.3% reduction, respectively. Similar results were observed for hospitalizations, −55.9% and −17.6% reduction for intervention and control groups, respectively. DID regression analysis also showed lower trends in ED visits and hospitalizations for the intervention group compared to the comparison group. Conclusions Results suggest that community-health system partnerships to address patient-reported food insecurity are feasible and potentially could reduce healthcare utilization in these patients. A larger, randomized trial may be the next step in fully evaluating this intervention, perhaps with more outcomes (e.g., medication adherence), and additional covariates (e.g., housing insecurity and financial strain).