Preliminary Impacts of a Produce Prescription Program in South Georgia

OBJECTIVES: Identify short-term changes in food security, dietary patterns, and biometrics following a six-week nutrition education and produce prescription intervention in South Georgia. METHODS: The Open Hand Atlanta Cooking Matters Produce Prescription Program adopts a holistic approach to a nutrition intervention by combining cooking classes, nutrition education, and weekly boxes of local produce over a six-month period. Baseline and six-week program data collected in South Georgia during 2021 were used to examine changes in food security and dietary patterns among program graduates (n = 62). RESULTS: Using paired t-tests for numerical outcomes and McNemar's tests for categorical food security, we examined participants’ reported changes in dietary outcomes. After six weeks of nutrition education and receiving local produce boxes, program participants reported increased consumption of dark greens, non-fried vegetables, and beans, alongside reduced consumption of fried foods and meals away from home. However, these changes were not statistically significant among our sample. Similarly, program participants reported non-statistically significant improvements in food security. Composite scores of healthy consumption, healthy purchasing, and resource management all improved from baseline to six-week follow-up with statistically significant improvements in healthy purchasing behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Among our sample, six weeks of nutrition education and produce receipt resulted in statistically significant changes in healthy purchasing behaviors and improvements across a suite of other dietary variables. Further longitudinal follow-up will examine longer-term changes associated with the produce prescription program. FUNDING SOURCES: Open Hand Atlanta.