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Identifying opportunities for collective action around community nutrition programming through participatory systems science

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A Correction to this article was published on 01 February 2024

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Abstract

Purpose

To apply principles of group model building (GMB), a participatory systems science approach, to identify barriers and opportunities for collective impact around nutrition programming to reduce cancer risk for immigrant communities in an urban environment.

Methods

We convened four in-person workshops applying GMB with nine community partners to generate causal loop diagrams (CLDs)—a visual representation of hypothesized causal relationships between variables and feedback structures within a system. GMB workshops prompted participants to collaboratively identify programmatic goals and challenges related to (1) community gardening, (2) nutrition education, (3) food assistance programs, and (4) community-supported agriculture. Participants then attended a plenary session to integrate findings from all workshops and identify cross-cutting ideas for collective action.

Results

Several multilevel barriers to nutrition programming emerged: (1) food policies center the diets and practices of White Americans and inhibit culturally tailored food guidelines and funding for culturally appropriate nutrition education; (2) the lack of culturally tailored nutrition education in communities is a missed opportunity for fostering pride in immigrant food culture and sustainment of traditional food practices; and (3) the limited availability of traditional ethnic produce in food assistance programs serving historically marginalized immigrant communities increases food waste and worsens food insecurity.

Conclusion

Emergent themes coalesced around the need to embed cultural tailoring into all levels of the food system, while also considering other characteristics of communities being reached (e.g., language needs). These efforts require coordinated actions related to food policy and advocacy, to better institutionalize these practices within the nutrition space.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy/ethnic restrictions.

Change history

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge our community and academic partners for their time, insights, and commitment to serve immigrant and minoritized communities. We would like to especially thank, Hamilton Madison House, Earth Matter, Pacific College of Health and Science, Arab American Association of New York, Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, Chinese American Planning Council, The Table at NYU Langone Brooklyn, Brooklyn Grange, Glynwood Regional Center for Food and Farming, Project New Yorker, Alzheimer’s Association, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and New York Academy of Medicine. This work would not be possible or impactful without them.

Funding

This publication is supported by Grant Numbers 3P30CA016087 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), U54MD000538 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), R01HL141427 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and R01MD018204 from NIMHD. This publication's contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section for Health Equity, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 180 Madison Ave, 8th Floor, New York, NY, 10016, USA

    Perla Chebli, Lan N. Đoàn, Matthew Chin, Victoria Foster, Chau Trinh-Shevrin, Simona C. Kwon & Stella S. Yi

  2. Center for Systems and Community Design, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, 55 W 125th St, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Rachel L. Thompson, Nasim Sabounchi & Terry T. K. Huang

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  1. Perla Chebli
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Contributions

PC and LĐ: contributed equally to this paper. The first draft of the manuscript was written by PC, LĐ, RT, MC, and SYRT: prepared Figs. 1–4 and supplementary table 1. MC: prepared Tables 1, 2. All authors commented on previous versions and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Perla Chebli.

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This study was determined to be exempt by the NYU Grossman School of Medicine Institutional Review Board.

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Chebli, P., Đoàn, L.N., Thompson, R.L. et al. Identifying opportunities for collective action around community nutrition programming through participatory systems science. Cancer Causes Control 34, 1043–1058 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-023-01751-6

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