Local People, Local Food Solutions- A Community-Based Participatory Action Research Project to Find the Barriers and Enablers of Healthy Eating and Create Solutions for Low Income Families of the Rural City of Wangaratta — Agentur Pty Ltd

Local People, Local Food Solutions- A Community-Based Participatory Action Research Project to Find the Barriers and Enablers of Healthy Eating and Create Solutions for Low Income Families of the Rural City of Wangaratta (137)

Clare Schultz 1 , Monique Hillenaar 2 , Barbara Young 2 , Sarah Nevin 2
  1. Northeast Health Wangaratta, WANGARATTA, VIC, Australia
  2. Health Promotion, Ovens and King Community Health Service, Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

Background:

There is consistent evidence showing those experiencing low socioeconomic conditions are more at risk of food insecurity. This research explores the barriers and enablers families on low incomes face in regards to healthy eating and to identify possible solutions that could support them to eat well. This research uses a participatory action research (PAR) approach, which has been shown to be effective in empowering and building partnership with traditionally hard- to- reach groups.

Methods:

1. Ethics Committee approved research proposal
2. Recruitment of low income, Rural City of Wangaratta residents to participate in the research (March-May)
3. Training provided to participants (June-Aug) to be Community Research Volunteers (CRVs)
4. CRVs hold discussion groups with people on low incomes around healthy eating (Sept-Oct)
5. Thematic analysis of data by researchers including CRVs (Oct-Nov)
6. CRVs and agencies involved in reporting results and prioritising solutions (Nov)

Results/Discussions:

The research is currently in recruitment phase. Existing relationships between local health agencies, local government and welfare agencies have been invaluable to engage with relevant people in our community. A long recruitment phase has been useful to allow time to engage and build trust with community members who have the capacity to participate as CRVs. The results from this research will provide information on issues for low income families in regards to eating well and possible solutions which would make it easier to eat well. These results will inform future healthy eating strategies undertaken by local health and community agencies for low income families.

Conclusions/implications:

An important aspect of using a PAR approach will be the development of relationships between the agencies and community to identify issues around healthy eating. It is hoped this process will lead to community identified solutions being developed, implemented and evaluated as a partnership between local agencies and the community.

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