Prioritizing Food Security Solutions

A Toolkit to Facilitate the Process

Food insecurity is a global issue with significant effects on human health. However, while great strides have been made in addressing hunger and improving health, continued progress is still necessary and depends on efforts at all levels. To make the best progress locally, communities must identify the most impactful way to use available resources.

This is how the Food Security Solutions (FSS) Prioritization Process can help. The four-step FSS Prioritization Process identifies the best solutions to improve food security in the community, given the resources available.

This four-step process will help identify the best food security solutions for your community. Worksheets developed specifically for this process are used to facilitate each step. To get started, download the Toolkit. Below, for each of the four steps, a summary and the worksheets are posted.

Download Toolkit (PDF)

Prioritizing Food Security Solutions Cover

Additional Resources

Contact: FSS@eatright.org

Step 1: Identify Unmet Needs

In this data-driven step, identify unmet needs, or gaps, between what the current food security challenges are and how the community is addressing these needs. Download a PDF summary of step one. The worksheets with instructions that support this step are:

1.1 Community Assessment

1.2 Program Inventory

1.3 Gap Analysis

These worksheets can be downloaded as an interactive Excel file with formulas enabled or as printer-friendly PDF file.

This is a list of potential sources for relevant and publicly-available data that can be used to complete the Community Assessment Worksheet. If the Advisory Panel determines that additional local level data should be collected, this is a list of some publicly available resources to support data collection.”

Read the key insights the Village of Northbrook has to share from their experience completing this step. To see how the FSS Prioritization Process can be used in the global space, read the case story about the work in Mumbai, India.

Step 2: Suggest Solutions and Screen

In this creative step, suggest solutions to address the community’s most pressing needs identified in step 1. This list is then systematically narrowed so that only the most feasible options move forward. Download a PDF summary of step two. The worksheets with instructions that support this step are:

2.1 Suggest Solutions

2.2 Screen Suggested Solutions

These worksheets can be downloaded as an interactive Excel file with formulas enabled or as printer-friendly PDF file.

Once unmet community needs are identified, the next step is for the advisory panel to brainstorm and suggest solutions. The completed Program Inventory Worksheet can offer inspiration.

Also, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is a U.S. organization with resources related to federal nutrition programs and the Alliance to End Hunger maintains a searchable resource library where you can find program ideas that have been implemented in other local communities.

Read the key insights the Village of Northbrook has to share from their experience completing this step. To see how this step can be adapted to can be adapted to handle more complex situations, read the case story of Humana’s work with the Greater Knoxville Health Advisory Board (GKHAB).

Step 3: Estimate Values

In this scoring step, each solution resulting from step 2 is assessed for cost, benefit and confidence in those estimates and assigned a representative value. Download a PDF summary of step three. The worksheets with instructions that support this step are:

3.1 Financial Estimates (Costs and Contributions)

3.2 Impact Score (Benefits)

3.3 Uncertainty Score

These worksheets can be downloaded as an interactive Excel file with formulas enabled or as printer-friendly PDF file.

When completing the Financial Estimates Worksheet, this resource estimates the value of volunteer time at both a national and state level.

Read the key insights the Village of Northbrook has to share from their experience completing this step. To see how just part of the process can be used to make and communicate a strategic decision, read the case story of the Davenport-Dunbar Home Pantry program.

Step 4: Prioritize Food Security Solutions

In this final, consensus-driven step, use the information from step 3 to rank or prioritize the suggested solutions. Download a PDF summary of step four. The worksheets with instructions that support this step are:

4.1 Prioritize Food Security Solutions

These worksheets can be downloaded as an interactive Excel file with formulas enabled or as printer-friendly PDF file.

Read the key insights the Village of Northbrook has to share from their experience completing this step.

Glossary

Advisory Panel The group of community or organization members organized around the shared goal of managing the prioritization process.
ANDHII Survey App An app to collect community assessment and program monitoring and evaluation data.
Community Assessment Collecting, analyzing and reporting information about a community to provide a snapshot of its needs and assets.
Financial Estimates Estimated costs of a solution considering direct and indirect expenses (e.g., facilities and administration costs), start-up and recurring costs and contributions (e.g., volunteer time and donations) that may offset those expenses.
Food Security The condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, as defined by the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security.
FSS Prioritization Process A systematic, transparent method to identify the best food security solutions for a community, given the resources available. The process, based on the PBMA framework, has been adapted by subject-matter experts and tested in communities in the U.S. and abroad.
Gap Analysis The process of highlighting the discrepancy between the current reality and the desired state to identify areas of need that are not being adequately addressed.
Impact Score A numerical value (maximum of 300) that summarizes how a solution may benefit a range of food security related indicators, such as quantity and variety of available food or the prevalence of obesity and micronutrient deficiencies in a given community.
Malnutrition Poor health as a result of not having enough safe and nutritious foods to eat. Malnutrition can manifest as undernutrition (e.g., underweight), micronutrient deficiencies (e.g., iron deficiency), obesity and chronic disease (e.g., Type 2 diabetes).
Marginal Analysis An examination of the impact in terms of costs and benefits of a change to a program as opposed to the assessment of the impact of the entire program. In cases where the change is the introduction of a new program, then marginal analysis is the examination of the entire new program.
Opportunity Cost The value of the benefits that are foregone when resources are devoted to one program or activity instead of the best alternative.
Prioritization The action of deciding the relative importance or urgency of one thing versus another.
Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA) A process that uses principles from ethics and economics to help decision-makers maximize the impact of limited resources on the needs of a local population.
Program Inventory A comprehensive list of the programs addressing food insecurity that currently exist in a community.
Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs) Food and nutrition experts who can translate the science of nutrition into practical solutions for healthy living, at the individual and community level.
Screening The narrowing of potential solutions using "yes/no" questions.
Solution New programs or modifications of existing programs that can be implemented within a year.
Uncertainty Score A numerical value (maximum of 15) that describes the confidence in the financial estimates and impact score used in the prioritization process.

Project Background

The theoretical framework for the Food Security Prioritization Process was informed by other, relevant models – paper from JAND

In February 2016, the General Mills Foundation awarded the Foundation a “Hunger Free Communities” planning grant. The planning grant was used to develop a food security and nutrition guide, assessment tools, and process to assist communities through a decision making process for selecting food security interventions that meet community needs and capacity.

To complete the project, the Foundation awarded a one-year Hunger Free Communities Research Fellowship to Elizabeth Yakes-Jimenez, PhD, RDN. Outputs of the project include a facilitator guide and set of tools, including:

  1. A community food and nutrition security assessment based on existing data
  2. A list of interventions to consider
  3. An intervention scoring sheet

Validity of the assessment tool was conducted with food and nutrition security experts in the U.S. and in several other countries.

In early 2017, GMF awarded a second grant to support the evolution of this project with a pilot of the assessment tool and decision process in three communities from 2017-2018, including two U.S. and one global setting. This included improving the process and tools developed while augmenting local decision making, strategic planning, and assessment and evaluation capacity. This work concluded in October 2018.

As part of this work, the Academy’s Health Informatics Infrastructure was enhanced to support additional global food security and nutrition intervention data points and outcomes measures. This web-based application and online tool was created as part of ANDHII to collect and monitor nutrition impact data and generate evaluation feedback and reports for individuals and aggregated data for populations. A second Hunger Free Communities fellow, Lee Unangst, MS, RDN, supported the creation of the ANDHII website architecture and created pilot testing plans for collecting data from the tools developed. This work is expected to wrap up in early 2019.

In late 2017, GMF awarded a third grant to support the continued augmentation of the guide and tools as well as supporting materials and an initial dissemination plan for this work to the broader public health community. This work is currently underway and has resulted in a fruitful collaboration with the Alliance to End Hunger and their network. During this phase of the project, the name was changed from “Hunger Free Communities” to “Food Security Solutions.” A robust collection of supporting materials for communities, as well as the final guide and tools, are expected to be available to the public in late 2018.

Currently we are in phase 4 of the project. A significant emphasis of this phase of FSS will be to communicate and disseminate the guide, tools, and ANDHII Survey App to increase awareness among the public health community and among national partners.