Outcomes of disease prevention

Introduction Food insecurity is a difficulty faced in many households. During periods of food insecurity, households often seek food supplied by food pantries and food banks. Food insecurity has been associated with increased risk for several health conditions. For this reason, food pantries and food banks may have great promise as intervention sites, and health researchers have begun targeting food pantries and food banks as sites for disease prevention or management interventions. The aim of the scoping review is to examine disease prevention or management interventions implemented in food pantries and food banks. Methods and analysis Relevant electronic databases (eg, MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature-CINAHL Complete, Science Citation Index, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews) will be searched for articles with a publication date of 1997 or later using Medical Subject Headings and key terms, including food aid, food banks, food pantries, food shelves, hunger, food insecurity and related concepts. For each de-duplicated study record identified by the search strategy, two reviewers will independently assess whether the study meets eligibility criteria (eg, related to intervention type, context). The reviewers will examine studies’ titles, abstracts and full text, comparing eligibility decisions to address any discrepancies. For each eligible study, data extraction will be executed by two reviewers independently, comparing extracted data to address any discrepancies. Extracted data will be synthesised and reported in a narrative review assessing the coverage and gaps in existing literature related to disease prevention and management interventions implemented in food pantries. Ethics and dissemination The review’s results will be useful to healthcare practitioners who work with foodinsecure populations, healthcare researchers and food pantry or food bank personnel. The results of this scoping review will be submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed journal, and the authors will share the findings with food pantry and food bank stakeholder groups with whom they work. IntroductIon Food insecurity, defined as lack of access to sufficient amounts of nutritious food, is a difficulty faced in many households. Periods of food insecurity may last for days, weeks or years for some households. During these periods, households often seek food from food pantries, which are local emergency food organisations that provide aid via distribution of unprepared food for offsite consumption. 3 Typical food pantries are staffed mostly by volunteers, largely funded by local donations, and associated with faithbased organisations. (To minimise confusion related to regional variations in terminology, this protocol uses terminology common to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reporting, where food pantries identifies local emergency food organisations that provide aid via distribution of unprepared food for offsite consumption, 3 and food banks identifies organisations that exist to distribute food to food pantries and other agencies who in turn distribute directly to individuals or households.) In 2015, food insecurity affected approximately 12.7% of households in the USA, and at least 5.2% of US households obtained food from food pantries. Among Outcomes of disease prevention and management interventions in food pantries and food banks: protocol for a scoping review Christopher R Long, Brett Rowland, Susan C Steelman, Pearl A McElfish To cite: Long CR, Rowland B, Steelman SC, et al. Outcomes of disease prevention and management interventions in food pantries and food banks: protocol for a scoping review. BMJ Open 2017;7:e018022. doi:10.1136/