Developing a Support Application for Food Pantries (SAFPAS) to Improve Client Access to Healthy Foods & Enhance Emergency Preparedness

NCT05880004 | Recruiting

• 2 other identifiers: 1R34HL161566-01A1IRB00024583
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 537
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Food pantries face many challenges, including recruitment and training of staff/volunteers, communications with staff/volunteers and clients, providing client choice, and emergency preparedness. The investigators will develop, implement, and evaluate the Support Application for Food Pantries (SAFPAS), a mobile application to address these concerns under normal and emergency operations, and assess its impact on 20 Baltimore food pantries, and on the healthiness of foods received by 360 food pantry clients using a randomized controlled trial design. If successful, the tested and refined app will support local food assistance programs throughout the United States.

Conditions

Improving Healthy Food Access in Food Insecurity Populations in Normal and Emergency Situations

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Change in Client FAST Scores as assessed by the Food Assessment Scoring Tool (FAST)

  Food Assessment Scoring Tool (FAST)(91) scores of client bags from pantries will be captured by the FAST scoring tool at baseline and post-treatment in a sample of 360 client bags (18 clients customers/pantry in 10 intervention and 10 control pantries, at baseline). Scores can range from 0-100 and are calculated based on the total weight and healthfulness of foods and beverages from 13 categories.

  1 hour, 14 months

Study Arms (2)

Food Pantries receiving SAFPAS intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Food Pantries in this arm will receive access to all functions of the SAFPAS application

Behavioral: Support Application for Food PAntrieS (SAFPAS) - A mobile app that helps food pantries recruit, train and schedule volunteers, offer choice safely, and provides multilevel communications

Food Pantries not receiving SAFPAS intervention

NO INTERVENTION

Food Pantries in the arm will not receive access to the SAFPAS application

Interventions

Support Application for Food PAntrieS (SAFPAS) - A mobile app that helps food pantries recruit, train and schedule volunteers, offer choice safely, and provides multilevel communications BEHAVIORAL

The primary intervention is a mobile application (app) which supports food pantries to recruit, train and schedule volunteers; provide a safe, remote form of client choice; and provides a means of sharing real-time status information with clients, pantries, food banks, and emergency operation centers. Following formative work, user centered design, and usability testing, the SAFPAS app will be implemented in three stages, where each stage introduces new features. Pantry clients will be encouraged to download the app and learn its key features at the end of baseline data collection. During the first weeks of each stage, training of participating food pantry directors/staff and Maryland Food Bank (MFB) staff will take place - focusing on use of any new features. Initial training will be follow up by proficiency testing.

Food Pantries receiving SAFPAS intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Regular client of the food pantry (visit food pantry/order from one or more participating food pantries at least 1 time/month), for the past year, identified by food pantry personnel Adult (18 years or older)
• Willing and able to use a mobile app through a smart phone (or other device) for making electronic Choice (echoice) selections and engaging in other communications

You may not qualify if:

• Anticipate moving out of Baltimore in the next 12 months (for pilot study)
• Pregnant (due to changes in diet, weight and body composition)
• Medically or behaviorally at risk as indicated by the food pantry
• No access to a smart phone or other web-enabled device and Wi-Fi

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: lead
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): collaborator
• Oakland University: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, United States

RECRUITING

Related Publications (1)

• Barnett DJ, Sundermeir SM, Reznar MM, Lightner A, Poirier L, Rosenblum AJ, Oladimeji AT, Igusa T, Neff R, Ruggiero CF, Lewis EC, Jager L, Moses L, Velez-Burgess V, Gagnon B, Attar N, Gittelsohn J. Protocol for the Support Application for Food PAntrieS trial: design, implementation, and evaluation plan for a digital application to promote healthy food access and support food pantry operations. Front Public Health. 2024 May 24;12:1340707. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1340707. eCollection 2024.

  PMID: 38855456 DERIVED

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Emergencies

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Disease Attributes; Pathologic Processes; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Joel Gittlesohn, PhD

  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Cara Shipley, BS

CONTACT

(410)502-6961; cshiple9@jhu.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: May 19, 2023
• First Posted: May 30, 2023
• Study Start: June 14, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): November 30, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): November 30, 2026
• Last Updated: December 17, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-12

Locations

US (1)