Family Systems Cultural and Resilience Dimensions to Consider in Nutrition Interventions: Exploring Preschoolers' Eating and Physical Activity Routines During COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the weight-related family functioning of racial minority families with low income using family systems theory as an interpretive framework. DESIGN: Primarily a qualitative study with interviews plus; descriptive demographics, anthropometrics, a family functioning measure, and food insecurity screening. SETTING: Telephone interviews with families of preschool-aged children in an urban setting. PARTICIPANTS: Primary caregivers of preschool-aged children. PHENOMENON OF INTEREST: Cultural impacts on family systems. ANALYSIS: Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and loaded into NVivo 12 for thematic analysis. Descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The 23 participants were mothers and 2 maternal grandmothers. Seventy-four percent were African American, most children were normal weight (n = 15, 65%), mean family function scores were high, and more than half the families were at risk for food insecurity (n = 13, 56%). Acculturation and intergenerational eating-related cultural dimensions were discerned as the overarching themes influencing family cohesion. Family cohesion appeared to have helped the families adapt to the impact of coronavirus disease 2019. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Cultural dimensions such as acculturation and intergenerational influences appeared to be associated with social cohesion and family functioning around weight-related behaviors for these families. These findings add cultural and family resilience dimensions to family systems theory in nutrition interventions.

Challenges Experienced by Behavioral Health Organizations in New York Resulting from COVID-19: A Qualitative Analysis.

This paper presents a qualitative content analysis of survey data collected from behavioral health care providers from throughout New York regarding the challenges faced as a result of COVID-19. Survey responses from 295 agency and program administrators and staff, representing 238 organizations, were analyzed. Ten themes were identified: business operations, service provision, telehealth, safety, client concerns, staff concerns, supplies, technology, illness/grief/loss, and communication. These themes represent concerns that arose from the rapid transition to widespread use of telehealth, limited technology accessibility for both staff and clients, reduced revenue and billing changes, impact of COVID-19 infection itself and subsequent deaths of clients and staff, and necessary modifications for organizational communication both internally and externally. The implications of these challenges and the need for further research to identify how to best address them are discussed.

Food Insecurity Among Health Sciences Graduate Students at a Large Northeastern University.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of food insecurity and the factors associated with it among health sciences graduate students. METHODS: A cross-sectional web-based survey conducted in 2019 on an urban health sciences campus of a large, public northeastern university among health sciences graduate students. Food security status was assessed using the US Department of Agriculture validated 6-item short-form food security module. RESULTS: Of the 302 respondents (response rate, 8.8%), the mean age ± SD was 28.8 ± 7.30 years; 28.5% were food insecure. After adjusting for other covariates, receiving loans was independently associated with higher odds of being food insecure (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Universities may consider screening graduate students for food insecurity risk, especially those receiving student loans. Future research on this topic with graduate students and program administrators in other universities may help identify potential interventions. The impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on food insecurity among graduate students merit exploration to develop context-specific interventions.