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ASNNA CONFERENCE VIRTUAL DAY

MARCH 1, 2023

IMPROVING FOOD ACCESS AND HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG RURAL WEST VIRGINIANS:

THE ROLE OF SNAP-ED AND ITS PARTNERS IN THE EXPANSION OF THE FARMACY WV, PRESCRIPTIONS FOR PRODUCE PROGRAM

GINA WOOD, MPH, RDN, LD

SAMANTHA SHAWLEY-BRZOSKA, PHD, MPH

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initiated in 2016 at a free and charitable clinic

patients with Type 2 diabetes

socioeconomic disparities

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Implementation and Logistics

Identify a partner health care site

Patient recruitment
Provider referral
Willing to host market and education on site
Capacity to collect patient data

Identify a source for nutrition education

Local WVU Extension office
Community college culinary program
Registered dietitian or diabetes educator

Identify a partnering farmer or aggregator

Capacity to supply required quantity and variety
Able to deliver and set up market each week

Identify funding sources

Local/regional community foundation grants
Local businesses or clubs
Health care community benefit dollars

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The initial partners included the founding clinicians, Dr Carol Greco and Amanda Cummins who provided consultation related to planning and implementation of the county-level programs. The WV Dept. of Ag who provided guidance around engaging local growers in the selected counties. The WVU Food Justice Lab who provided guidance evaluating the program from the grower perspective. We also engaged our state's largest aggregators, Turnrow Appalachian Farm Collective and Sprouting Farms in supplying the produce needed for FARMacy in counties where there was limited capacity among local growers. It was important to us that we use FARMacy and the other food access programs within the grant to support WV farmers so that the grant funding flowed directly into the local food economy. This led to a partnership with the WV Farmers Market Association who sustained FARMacy programs in 2022 through a WV DHHR COVID relief (once the Walmart grant had ended).

From the beginning the Office of Health Services Research was the backbone of support for this program. They helped draft many sections of the grant, and provided guidance throughout the IRB process. They led and continue to lead the program evaluation and they also convene and lead the state-level and county-level planning meetings. OHSR has a 40-year history of working with healthcare partners to provide technical assistance related to quality improvement and more recently they provide support to collect, track and report data on a wide variety of community based health programs (such as FARMacy). They do this via the WV Health Connection which supports HIPAA-compliant data collection from these programs and reports it back to the referring health care provider.

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Part 2:

Public website showcasing program availability, logistics, mapping

Part 1:

HIPAA compliant software, offering data tracking, reporting, referrals

WV Health Connection Mission

Helping to address our long-standing challenges in integrating and mobilizing across clinical and community settings for the sake of individuals, families, and community/population health

Direct technical assistance to clinical and community-based partners
Supports:

Knowledge of available community-based programming
Willingness and ability to refer to program offerings
Ability for community-organizations to securely and reliably track necessary metrics
Ability to measure effectiveness of programming and demonstrate value
Communication and therefore collaboration
Sense of a collective response to critical public health issues in communities, regions, and the state

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Preliminary Results 2020-2021

Over 340 participants
14 sites
12 counties

2022

165 participants
Reduction in HbA1c of 0.90 (n=123)
Reduction in total cholesterol of 4.06 mg/dl (n=89)
Reduction in BMI of 0.96 lbs (n=115)
Participants received over 88,000 pounds of fresh, locally grown produce
Increase in fruit and vegetable consumption

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FARMacy's Presence in West Virginia

Barbour
Berkeley
Boone
Cabell
Calhoun
Clay
Grant
Greenbrier
Hardy
Jackson
Jefferson
Lincoln

Logan
Mercer
Mineral
Mingo
Ohio
Pleasants
Ritchie
Roane
Tyler
Upshur
Wood

26 locations in 23 of 55 counties

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Present & Future

Non-profit status

paid coordination

Partnerships with Medicaid MCOs

funding
referrals

Data briefs

county-specific
statewide

Policy brief

Policy clinic series for health care partners

3 sessions
CME

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Thank you!

farmacywestvirginia@gmail.com

gina.wood@mail.wvu.edu

sshawley@hsc.wvu.edu

farmacywv.com