Food: A Three-Arm Study Examining Food Insecurity Interventions

Study Summary

The investigators have found that many patients getting treatment for cancer have trouble getting enough to eat, or do not always have enough money for food. When a patient has these problems it can lead to difficulties with completing cancer treatment. Across New York City, there are many hospitals that offer their patients food pantry services on location. The investigators would like to compare how food pantries within the hospital and two other food assistance options: monthly food vouchers and weekly grocery deliveries maybe possible solutions to this problem. The patient will be randomly assigned to one of the three different food program groups, which means everyone has an equal chance in being in any group, like a flip of a coin. The investigators hope to learn how to best help patients with trouble getting food and to see if this will help with completing cancer treatment. The original RCT composed of study arms: 1) hospital -based food pantry (control), 2) food voucher program plus access to the food pantry, and 3) grocery delivery program plus access to the food pantry will remain open to accrual at Ralph Lauren Cancer Center. The other three sites of the original RCT, Lincoln Hospital, Queens Cancer Center and Brooklyn Hospital, have reached target accrual. Our modified RCT, to be carried out among an expanded cohort of cancer patients is composed of study arms : 1) Food Voucher Program (Voucher); 2) Home Grocery Delivery Program (Delivery); and 3) Medically-tailored, Hospital-based Food Pantry (Pantry). For this RCT, we will enroll patients across Bronx hospitals- Jacobi Medical Center, St. Barnabas Hospital, and Montefiore Medical Center. For the new study arms, we will enroll patients across Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, Jacobi Medical Center, St. Barnabas Medical Center, Montefiore Health System, New York Cancer \& Blood Before Specialists, and Bellevue Hospital. Before conducting the RCT across Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center

Primary Outcome

Completion of prescribed treatment, increase from 75% to 94%, as assessed by chart review (for the period from recruitment to study completion at 6 months). To determine whether participation in the interventions leads to improvements in cancer treatment completion.

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL surveys
• BEHAVIORAL Focus groups

Study Locations (10)