Examining Interprofessional Trends in Food Insecurity and Loneliness Among Health Professional Students: Implications for Structural Support

Food insecurity among healthcare students impacts mental health, educational outcomes, and interprofessional socialization. This presentation explores sustainable food banks as a potential solution, using Maslow's hierarchy and Gruppen's learning environment framework to assess effects on food security, loneliness, and interprofessional learning. We examine how meeting students' basic physical and psychosocial needs promotes well-being and interprofessional competence while creating supportive educational environments across healthcare disciplines.

FULL ABSTRACT:

Healthcare professional education is exceedingly taxing and demanding across disciplines, as learners strive to develop professional and interprofessional competence. Learners are asked to navigate curricula with arduous schedules, with many also experiencing financial constraints that may contribute to food insecurity. Food insecurity includes "reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet" and may involve "reduced food intake" and "lack of money and other resources for food" (USDA). A relatively high percentage of health professional and graduate students fall in the low and marginal food security categories, which are highly correlated with increased depression, anxiety, and stress (Coffino at al. 2021, Flynn et al. 2020). Applying Maslow's hierarchy of needs, failing to meet students' basic physical and psychosocial needs may negatively impact their educational experience and overall outcome (Naaz & Khalid 2023, Freitas & Leonard 2011).

Utilization of sustainable food banks is one method of addressing learners' basic needs when food insecurity is present on health professional campuses. Improving personal and organizational psychosocial dimensions of Gruppen's learning environment framework (Gruppen et al. 2019) could enhance engagement in interprofessional education and socialization and create a "safe environment" (Dolan & Nowell 2023). Evaluation should include food security assessment with the USDA 6-Item Short Form Food Security Survey along with loneliness screening using the UCLA 3-Item Loneliness Scale, performed through pre- and post-implementation surveys at baseline and three years after the food bank's creation (Ahmad et al. 2021, Gosling et al. 2024).

Although food insecurity has been identified among health professional students, the impact of food insecurity on loneliness and student connectedness has yet to be explored. Given that both physical and psychosocial factors contribute to the learning environment as defined by Gruppen et al.'s framework, there is a need for further research in this area to promote positive learning environments and interprofessional socialization.