Out of the desert Thundermist/NHPRI pilot program offers food delivery to help Woonsocket eat healthier
WOONSOCKET — Susan Cassey is a weary traveler in the food desert.
A diabetic who walks with a cane and doesn’t own a motor vehicle, Cassey, 58, sometimes finds the challenges of food shopping so daunting that she puts off trips to the supermarket, and that means finding a way to make what’s in the pantry last longer.
“I’d rather not have to do that, but sometimes you do what you gotta do,” she says. “Doing shopping by bus is very difficult, if you can imagine carrying six bags of groceries when you walk with a cane.”
A high concentration of people like Cassey – with Medicaid-level incomes in a one-supermarket town – are one of the factors that led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to put Woonsocket on its food desert map over a decade ago. Now she’s among 140 people who are involved in a six-month pilot project designed to test whether supplemental groceries delivered directly to their homes, coupled with regular clinical evaluation, can improve their health and sense of well-being.
The brainchild of the Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, the project is very different than the supplemental food programs that have become a ubiquitous feature of the pandemic era amid increased concerns of food insecurity and unemployment.
Neighborhood has already sunk nearly $400,000 into the project, partly to support the work of its clinical partner, Thundermist Health Center. But some of the investment also represents Neighborhood’s effort to identify those who needed help most.
For that, Neighborhood turned to Algorex Health of Boston, a health care analytics company that employed social determinants of health data, or SDOHs, to identify the target group. SDOH is health care shorthand for a long list of factors that can affect an individual’s health, including income, education and living environment, among others.
Thundermist Health Center’s Jennifer Pace, the lead behavioral clinician for the Neighborhood-Thundermist Food Access Program, says the study group, with help from the Algorex data, was whittled down from the clinic’s
entire Medicaid client list – a group of several thousand people.
The project, which was launched in December, includes people who are typically struggling with health issues, poverty and poor access to food, often because they do not own a vehicle, says Pace.
For many, housing can also be an issue. In fact, says Pace, 12 of the participants in the Neighborhood-Thundermist Food Access Program are homeless.
As challenging as it is for patients like Cassey to get to the supermarket – sometimes she hits up a friend for a ride to Price-Rite, the only one in the city proper – it’s next to impossible for the homeless.
“Most of them just kind of go with whatever’s convenient,” says Pace. “The healthy options are very slim when you’re shopping at the corner store or the gas station.”
In an effort to match up food supplements with the individual needs of participants in the study group, the program offers three distinct packages of shelf-stable grocery supplements – one that’s ready to eat without cooking, one for vegetarians and another for everybody else.
For most, a typical Neighborhood-Thundermist “food box” will include some cereal, beans, lentils, rice, pasta and canned fruits. In addition to food, every package includes face masks and hand sanitizer to help participants cope with the pandemic.
Participants receive a food box once a week or twice a month, depending on the severity of food insecurity they’re facing. Although some of the packages are delivered by Thundermist staff or picked up at the Clinton Street clinic, most are shipped directly to the participants’ homes, so there’s generally little or no travel involved for the beneficiaries.
“A lot of our patients overall at Thundermist don’t have access to reliable transportation,” says Pace. “Getting to the market is an issue. Transportation is a major barrier.”
Food supplements are only one component of the program. Recipients are taking in a series of evaluations by members of Pace’s clinical team in attempts to determine whether the program has resulted in better health, reduced stress as a result of food insecurity, or a general improvement in their sense of well-being.
“The motivation here is quite simple,” says Peter Marino, president and CEO of Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island. “We think we can do a better job of helping people address their food concerns, and that should equal better health.”
Using Algorex on the project reflects Neighborhood’s growing interest in applying data analytics to health care, according to Marino, who says the pandemic only heightened the need to find a creative, science-driven solution to food insecurity.
Marino says he’s excited to see the outcome data for the project after participants are given their final assessments at Thundermist in June.
It’s entirely possible Neighborhood Health Plan will expand the project if the results show it’s successful, Marino said.
“I think if you just provide food you can meet the need, but if you couple that with excellent health care, I think you can drive better health outcomes for families,” Marino said. “That’s what makes this program different.”
As for Cassey, she already feels the program is helping her manage her diabetes better. And the program is providing more relief than mere help stocking the pantry or reducing her reliance on transportation to get healthy food.
Because the food box is filled with items that are different than what she’d normally buy, she finds herself poking around on the computer to search for new recipes. She also gets help at the stovetop from a friend she describes as “a fabulous cook.”
“It’s great,” she says. “I take it and I look up on the internet how to cook lentils.”