Identify Stakeholders
Our team started to map out our initial list stakeholders and came up with an initial brainstorm or “map” of people we believe would have a vested interest in any solution that addressing food security.
Since that meeting, we met via Google Hangouts to identify more people to interview and determine what questions to ask. We also decided to create a group of questions that we would ask each person; something that might reveal some insight we wouldn’t be able to capture by asking different questions to each person.
Individually, we did our own research and discovered some surprising people to interview, including a Top Chef and a roommate who lived in a food desert.
Here we created a “working” list of people we would love to interview (below) and we expanded on the stakeholder list as we learned more about the larger community.
After creating a working list of people to interview, we created another draft of questions to ask our interviewees. We also agreed to ask our interviewees a small number of the same questions to identify and determine if there are any patterns or contradictions. These are the questions (subject to change):
- What is your definition of a food desert?
- How can social media and technology play a larger role in raising awareness of food deserts?
- What kind of cultural barriers exist to addressing food deserts?
- Please tell me about how food access impacts one’s health?
- What do you think is missing to help address food deserts?
- How does your work help to address the food desert issue?
- Who or what organizations are successful in addressing food deserts? How are they accomplishing it?
- What is the biggest change that you would like to see within your community, in order to help eliminate food deserts?
Since we have four people in our group and tasked with interviewing 3 each, we also opted to ask questions specific to each person:
For the pediatrician:
- Do you have patients who live in food deserts?
- What common diseases do they have? Are these diseases directly related to unhealthy diet? Does other family member suffer from the same diseases as children?
- Who are the main source of health education (parents, school, friends)? How would you help your patients to engage in health education?
For the registered dietitian:
- How does the diet of someone live in a food desert affect their overall well-being and health?
- What are the factors that contribute to dietary behavior at a household or ‘family’ level?
- How would you help someone change their lifestyle habits who has lived in a food desert?
For school administrators:
- How many students are affected by food deserts within your school?
- How does being located within a food desert affect students? Does it affect their learning/focus or health/attendance within the classroom setting?
- What is the school’s outreach for those families that are affected by lack of access to healthy food?
For parents:
- What are the biggest challenges of living within a food desert?
- Tell me about where you buy fruits and vegetables. How far do you travel and how long does it take you? (Follow up: Why? Or I’d love to hear more about your transportation.)
- Are there programs or Urban Gardens that you may participate in? What is the community outreach for living within a food desert?
- What kind of fresh foods do you try to incorporate into your daily routine that are more nutritious, if any? How do you get access to those foods?
- What is the biggest change within your community that you would like to see in order to help eliminate food deserts?
For a student: (If possible)
- Do you provide your own meals for school? “Pack a lunch? Or eat at school?” Why?
- What kind of meals are you provided with?
- What kind of education is being provided on food, health and nutrition?
- Are there programs or Urban Gardens that you may participate in? Would you be interested in being a part of an Urban Garden within your community of school?
For chefs Jeremy Ford and Michelle Bernstein:
- What inspired you to join the #DrinkGoodDoGood social media campaign?
- How can restaurants play an active role in raising awareness of food deserts?
For friend who lived in a food desert:
- What was done to improve the situation while you lived there?
- If you wanted fresh groceries, how did you go about getting them?
- Did you know you were moving to a food desert?
For holistic health practitioner:
- Do you have patients who live in food deserts?
- How does the diet of someone live in a food desert affect their overall well-being and health?
- How would you help someone change their lifestyle habits who has lived in a food desert?
For Health in the Hood:
- What makes your program unique from other food desert outreach efforts?
- How has your program affected the food desert population? Did raising awareness about food deserts lead to other benefits as well?
- How were the head gardeners selected?
For Urban Oasis Project:
- Describe your long-term vision for Urban Oasis.
- What motivated you to start Urban Oasis?
- What makes the Urban Oasis Project different from other food desert organizations?
- Tell me about some of your most successful campaigns. Why?
- Tell me about a failure. What did you learn?
- What barriers do people face to access healthy foods? (transportation is a big hurdle)
- What challenges do you believe face food desert communities in the near future?
- I’d like to hear more about your Urban Farmer Incubator Program.
For a food systems specialist:
- Tell me about your job as a Food Systems Specialist
- What are the challenges for underserved communities at the policy level?
- Tell me about SNAP and how it can help?
- What programs—outreach initiatives, education, etc.— are doing well and what more would you like to see? (around the state, the country, the world.
- What non-U.S. solutions are working in the world?
- What challenges do farmers and organization who wish to help underserved communities face?
- What are some of the psychosocial factors that may prevent people from going to a farmer’s market, a new grocery store, etc. in their neighborhoods?
For a local Farmer and activist:
- What motivated you to start an urban farm and garden as well as all of your other initiatives?
- Tell me about farmers’ markets in general.
- Tell me about any challenges or barriers Urban Greenworks has faced in bringing community gardening, education and other health initiatives to people?
- How can schools be an access point for change?
- What more needs to happen at the policy level to help address food and health in underserved neighborhoods?
- What challenges do you (or farmers and gardeners) face in growing and feeding your communities?
- What do you believe is most misunderstood about food deserts?
- How does geography impact food access?
- Which aspects of the local food environment (e.g., availability, price, convenience) are most relevant to health
For a small farmer (New York state):
- In what ways does food access impact one’s health and/or the health of a community?
- Who or what organizations are successful in addressing food deserts? How are they accomplishing it?
- Tell me about what motivated you to be a farmer and in what ways farmers can help contribute to the solution of providing healthy food to people who lack access?
- What would be the challenges/barriers as a farmer in contributing to the solution?
- What benefits might you see?
- Please tell me about your thoughts about farmer’s markets and their relationship to food deserts.
For a public health professional:
- What are some successful efforts to address the food desert issue?
- Please tell me about policy and how it is affecting the disparity in diet and overall health.
- What community relationships do you see would work best to help address public health? (Schools + local farmers? Food trucks + Doctors?)
- What kind of solution would help to address food choices?
- In addition to transportation and prices, what other barriers exist to access healthy food?
Note: We also decided that whatever solution takes shape, that we would want the intervention to be adaptable and usable in other states and cities; not just Florida. This is why we opened up the list of people to interview nationally.
Field trip! Legion Park Farmer’s Market this Saturday.
This weekend, we will be heading to Legion Park Farmer’s Market as a group to meet up with two people from the Urban Oasis Project — Art Friedlich, President of Urban Oasis Project and Jeannie Necessary, Board President and Food Systems Specialist. We may also meet Roger Horne, co-founder of Urban Greenworks and Cerasee Farm.
This is Part 3 in a series documenting my learning experiences developing a solution to address food deserts, food security, health literacy, and health for populations. This project is part of our Designing Innovation course with Professor Lien Tran at the University of Miami, School of Communication. I am an IMFA (Interactive Media Master of Fine Arts) candidate.