Funded Projects

In 2019, food insecurity impacted 11% of US households, with 5.6 million households reporting very low food security. In late June 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this number rose to over 27% of US households with children, impacting 13.9 million US children. People who experience food insecurity, have lower financial planning ability, and poorer dietary quality, often have higher delay discounting and are more oriented toward the present. Interventions aimed at improving financial planning abilities have been used to reduce delay discounting in certain at-risk populations. The primary goal of this proposal is to determine the feasibility and acceptability of a financial planning intervention to reduce food insecurity, reduce delay discounting, and increase financial literacy in low income, food insecure families. We hypothesize that participants will have a decrease in food insecurity, better financial planning skills, and reduced delay discounting after the 10-session intervention compared to baseline levels and to a SNAP-Ed comparator arm. We will randomize 40 individuals (20 to each intervention). Potential participants will be eligible if they have food insecurity, are primarily responsible for the shopping and bill paying the home, if they have at least one child under the age of 18 living at home, and if they are willing to share shopping and financial information with us. There will be a baseline data collection session and randomization, followed by 10 sessions delivered weekly for 4 weeks, biweekly for 8 weeks, and once per month for two months. There will be an assessment immediately following the intervention delivery and at 2 months after the end of the intervention time period, for a total time in the study of 8 months. We will compare this intervention to a SNAP-Ed only intervention called Healthy Choices for EveryBody Adult Nutrition Education.