Skip to main content

COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1436760
This article is part of the Research Topic Food Insecurity, Food Environment, Malnutrition and Obesity in Low- and Medium-Income Countries View all articles

A New Approach to a Wicked Problem: Development of a Cross-sector Community-centered Learning Network to Tackle Childhood Food Inequity

Provisionally accepted
Aaron M. Schuh Aaron M. Schuh 1Christopher Alexander Christopher Alexander 2Kristen Gasperetti Kristen Gasperetti 3Michelle C. Gorecki Michelle C. Gorecki 4Kimberly Cutler Kimberly Cutler 2Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman 5Robert S. Kahn Robert S. Kahn 4,5,6Chika Okano Chika Okano 2Carley L. Riley Carley L. Riley 3,5,6*
  • 1 Division of Adolescent and Transition Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • 2 James M Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • 3 Division of Critical Care Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • 4 Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • 5 Other, Cincinnati, United States
  • 6 Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Food insecurity is a complex societal problem that disproportionately impacts households with children and those led by minoritized populations, with negative impacts on health across the life course. System to Achieve Food Equity adapted the learning systems model, used to address similarly complex problems, to tackle food insecurity at a neighborhood level. SAFE, born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, leverages a family-centered, community-based, cross-sector network fundamentally aimed at changing the food system so that all children in Cincinnati have the food they need to thrive. Through the following principles, Community-Led Network, Co-Production with Community, Equitable Sustainability, Learning to Learn Together, Distributing Leadership and Power, and Shared Data and Governance, SAFE has grown to over 300 individuals and 100 organizations, funded 9 novel interventions, distributed over 270,000 meals, and created a collaborative of motivated like-minded stakeholders. Future work includes improved data collection and sharing, support for increased stakeholder engagement and greater distribution of leadership and power, advocacy for policy change, refining measurement tools of network maturity for community settings, and collaboration with other efforts that contribute to food security indirectly.

    Keywords: Food insecurity, Food equity, learning network, community-centered, Improvement science

    Received: 22 May 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Schuh, Alexander, Gasperetti, Gorecki, Cutler, Hoffman, Kahn, Okano and Riley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Carley L. Riley, Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, 45229, Ohio, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.