Connecting high-risk Veterans with food and nutrition support
Official title: Implementing a Clinical-Community Partnered Intervention to Address Food Insecurity Among High-Risk Veterans
Funded at Providence VA Medical Center · NIH-11530137 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project will try ways to help Veterans who struggle to get enough healthy food by linking VA clinics with community food programs and services.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Providence VA Medical Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Providence, United States) |
| Project start | October 1, 2020 |
| Project end | December 31, 2025 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| NIH project number | 5IK2HX003013-06 |
| Project ID | NIH-11530137 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are Veterans receiving care in the VA who screen positive for food insecurity or report difficulty obtaining adequate nutritious food.
✕Less likely to help
Veterans who already have stable access to sufficient nutritious food or who do not receive care at participating VA sites are unlikely to receive direct benefit from this project.
What this research studies
If you're a Veteran who screens positive for food insecurity at your VA clinic, this project looks at how clinics partner with local food banks, dietitians, and social services to connect you to help. The team will compare different clinic responses after a positive food-security screen and track whether Veterans actually receive services. They will use VA screening data across multiple sites and work with community partners to refine what works best. The effort follows Veterans' food security, care experiences, and related health and health-care use over time.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could make it easier for Veterans to get regular access to nutritious food, improve health related to nutrition, and reduce avoidable health-care use.
How similar studies have gone: Some clinic-to-community referral programs and VA screening efforts have shown promise in connecting patients to food resources, but evidence is mixed and it remains unclear which practices most improve food security and health.
Where this research is happening
-
Providence VA Medical Center
Providence, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Cohen, Alicia — Providence VA Medical Center
- Study coordinator: Cohen, Alicia
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
Promesa: Urban gardens and peer nutrition to help people with HIV in the Dominican Republic
A unified program uses urban gardening and peer nutrition counseling to help people living with HIV who are food insecure in the Dominican Republic improve their health and HIV outcomes.
-
Addressing Food Insecurity in Underserved Communities
A multi-site effort to reduce food insecurity and related health disparities in Black and other under-represented communities by introducing universal screening and community-driven, structural interventions in Florida FQHCs.
-
Promesa: Urban gardens and peer nutrition support for people with HIV in the Dominican Republic
This project offers urban gardening and peer-led nutrition support to people living with HIV who face food insecurity in the Dominican Republic to help keep their viral load undetectable and stay on treatment.
-
Pay-what-you-can cafes and heart health in people with high blood pressure and food insecurity
This project tests whether eating at pay-what-you-can cafes improves blood pressure and heart- disease related outcomes for hypertensive adults who face food insecurity.
-
Addressing Food Insecurity for Youth with Diabetes in Clinical Care
A study tests a social work–led program to screen for social needs like food insecurity and connect families of children with type 1 diabetes to community resources through their health care clinic.
-
Produce Prescription Program to Help American Indian Older Adults with Diabetes Risk
A community-based program will provide healthy foods to AI older adults to help reduce food insecurity and lower type 2 diabetes risk.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.