O3243: Academic-Community Culinary Medicine and Urban Gardening Experiential Learning Collaboration to Promote Community Health Equity and Service-Learning Education

Background: The 2022 White House Conference on Nutrition and Health called for disparities-closing initiatives to end hunger, reduce diet-related disease, and improve nutrition education. HARVEST Academic Community Partnership was formed among 4 stakeholders (university, medical school-teaching hospital, urban farm, and community-based organization (CBO) serving minority youth) to assess partnership-feasibility and improve nutrition literacy, food access, and trainee education through food and gardening.

Methods: The partnership extended over 1-year with two interventions. (1) Spring 2023 (Urban Farm -New York City): 24 participants (minority NY Presbyterian HeartSmarts patients, Association to Benefit Children (ABC) educators, Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) faculty/students, Cornell Ithaca faculty/students) attended a 2-hour educational tour of Harlem Grown (HG) farm which included visiting the chicken coop, composting, mushroom chamber, hydroponic greenhouse, and bee apiary. Following harvesting and culinary tasting (Lion’s Mane Bolognese), a plant researcher (Cornell) and physician (WCM) led discussions on the benefits of fresh produce to health. Produce was offered to participants to bring home. (2) Fall 2023 (University – Ithaca): HG educator and WCM physician visited an undergraduate Medical Ethnobotany class to discuss culinary medicine, urban farm youth development, health equity, and bias awareness for effective community engagement. Farm produce and recipes were given to students. Post-program feedback surveys followed both events to determine interest among patients, CBO members, medical, and undergraduate trainees for experiential learning around food, nutrition, and gardening.

Results: Part One: Following the educational farm tour, culinary tasting, and nutrition discussion, participants which included patients, CBO leaders, and trainees 95% (n=19) expressed interest for future experiential learning in food/nutrition/gardening. Key take-aways included: “the abundance of locally/urban grown healthy food available to the neighborhood community, “growing plants without soil”, “ingredient/nutrition breakdown of the demonstrated dish” (Table 1). Part Two: Following Medical Ethnobotany class involving physician and urban farm educator, 93% (n=43) of the undergraduates reported being more knowledgeable about food insecurity and associated adverse health effects; 100% had better understanding/appreciation of how food may be used in medicine; 98% had greater confidence in ability to think about food system issues and individual/community health; 98% had deeper understanding of complexities patients face; 72% expressed definite interest in volunteering at HG. Students appreciated learning cost-effective culinary pearls to support personal food security and wellness. (Table 2)

Conclusion: Successful partnership among academic and community stakeholders was demonstrated with interest in co-creating future nutrition gardening experiential service-learning collaborations among underserved children/families, undergraduates, medical students, faculty, and community partners, however, caution in interpreting the data is advised due to the subjective nature of the results. Future successful community-academic partnerships, supported by validated questionnaires, may offer promise in addressing social and health challenges. Embedding service-learning of medical trainees in the community-academic partnership provides long-term programmatic and personnel sustainability of these impactful initiatives.