Food Insecurity in Chicago
Community Engagement as a Method to Improve Education around food
2023
Behavioral Design
Introduction
Imagine having to take a train or a bus to get a snack.
Imagine having to skip lunch to save money for gas.
Imagine having to choose between who in your family gets to eat dinner.
These are decisions that up to 1 in 4 Americans have to make.
Everyday.
Simple Statistics can be misleading:
Food insecurity can actually lead to increased levels of obesity.
It’s the result of various systemic biases.
But, more importantly, it is inter-generational
Just “adding more grocery stores” doesn’t help food insecurity.
But for some reason, people keep trying.
As part of a class on Behavioral Design taught by Prof. Ruth Schmidt at the Institute of Design, Brayan Pabon, Sophie Chen, Smrti Ganesan and I looked at using systems design to understand the driving forces behind food insecurity, and ways in which behavioral design can inform future interventions.
System Mapping
The first step was to map the system to understand the complexity of the problem, the stakeholders and the power dynamics keeping things from improving.
We then chose to focus in on one area:
Education on Food & Education on Nutrition
Why Education?
Increasing access alone doesn’t change behaviors, which is why interventions such as “opening more grocery stores” don’t help. Instead we suggest the use of “boosts”.
Improving education around food will help people make the best decisions for themselves.
Education is also much more than just the things taught at school.
Rituals form an important part of how we learn about food, and build habits and identity.
(either good or bad)
Studying different areas where people are more receptive to education around food, we chose to focus on Community Events as an entry point for behavioral change.
We then conducted additional research to better understand the problem:
Interviews
Lindsey (Forty Acres Farms)
Tommy Elwell (Just Roots Chicago)
John (Greater Chicago Food Depository)
Expert
Interviews
Prof. Weslynne Ashton (IIT)
Prof. Maura Shea (IIT)
Community
Events
Austin Farmer’s Market
Just Roots Chicago
Elmwood Park Food Pantry
Online Cultural
Deep Dive:
Reddit
Youtube
TikTok
Instagram
Desk
Research
Eater Chicago
South Side Weekly
NYU News
CDC
USDA
FDA
Participant
Observation
Greater Chicago
Food Depository: Repack
While there are multiple efforts to reduce food insecurity, they are often conducted by different stakeholders, and focus on only one part of the system.
In order to ensure an effective solution, we need to understand the needs of different of different stakeholders, and how any intervention will affect or benefit them.
How to (better) host a community event in order to facilitate behavioral change
Who they can reach out to and engage with for support in hosting an event.
Event hosting guide
Community Network Guide Template
Government Resources Guide Template
Local Farmers
Effectively advertise and sell
Increase demand
Spread the word about the benefits of buying local
Benefits
Stakeholder
Guidance they need
Intervention
Community Leaders /
Event Organizers
Uplift the community
Build local food systems
City Event Guide
“Local Food” Display Template
What events and stores they can sell their produce at.
How they can effectively engage with the community through events.
How they can support behavioral change through the goods they stock.
How they can support and promote local farmers/local produce.
Who to get in touch with to donate food waste.
“Local Food” Display Template
Recipe Card Template
Foodbanks /
Food Pantries
Reduce recidivism rate
How they can brand themselves to lower the stigma for customers.
How they can better educate customers on the governmental benefits and local resources available to them.
How can they connect with local grocery stores, farmers and community gardens to improve the food they offer?
Community Network Guide Template
Branding Guidelines (to reduce stigma)
Reduce food waste
Increase demand
Engage with local communities
Foster goodwill in the community
Supermarkets /
Grocery Stores
What existing networks can they tap into for outreach?
How they can help contribute to long term behavioral change
What they need to be aware of when it comes to local cultural norms/assets.
Recipe Instructions Template
Branding Guidelines (to reduce stigma)
Government Resources Guide Template
Improve food access
Reduce food waste
Leverage community assets
Lower Stigma
NGO’s in the Space
What they need to be aware of when it comes to local cultural norms/assets.
What existing networks can they tap into for outreach?
How they can help contribute to long term behavioral change
Community Network Guide Template
Government Resources Guide Template
Tap into existing community networks
Leverage local assets
Improve reputation
Government Entities
Local Chefs /
Authors /
Food Bloggers
Reach a larger audience
Improve image
How they can help long term behavioral change through education (teaching skills vs teaching recipes)
How they can engage with communities, what communities they can engage with, who they can reach out to.
What NGO's, Food Banks and Food Pantries they can engage with.
Recipe Instructions Template
Aligned Interventions
As the system is incredibly complex, any attempt at significant, persistent change would require multiple interventions at multiple points in the customer journey. These would need to be aligned to ensure that the change is persistent rather than temporary change.
In order to facilitate this alignment, we created a framework for behavioral change through community engagement.
Entice
Framing is important as it reflects identity and context, and affects receptivity.
One of the bigger challenges is attracting people to community events. With their already busy schedules, it can seem like a significant time investment, with little pay-off.
Here, Framing will play a major role, While it may seem apt to frame these as cooking classes or farmer’s market, these may not attract the right target audience. But, framing it as a completely unrelated event will affect receptivity. Finding a balance is key.
Piggy-backing off an existing event may also be a useful solution. Community often have existing networks that are an effective way to spread the message and advertise and event to members of a community, and tapping into these “networks of networks” is key to bringing in people.
Possible Intervention: A guide for how to host a community event to incorporate behavioral design elements and drive social change.
Engage
Interventions need to build on the existing cultural assets of the community
Engagement is important to getting buy-in. People will not engage with any potential solution if they don’t see the need to invest time and money to learn and develop new rituals.
Taste is key. Any engagement needs to be tailored to the culture of the local community, and build on those assets instead of trying to introduce new flavors and foods.
Tapping into the knowledge of local chefs and community leaders is important, as they provide deeper insights than can be gleaned from research.
Possible Intervention: Re-interpreting traditional dishes to incorporate more vegetables / locally sourced/ sustainable ingredients
Educate
The barriers for entry are high and need to be lowered
Going from someone that doesn’t cook, to someone that can meal plan, shop, prep and cook every meal for a week is a big ask, and can instantly push people away.
Here, introducing structure, reducing friction and focusing on success stories is key. By starting people off with simple tasks (chopping vegetables) and simple recipes, the barrier for entry is lowered. Slowly increasing the difficulty flattens the learning curve as it focuses on developing one skill at a time, as opposed to dealing with multiple challenges.
Possible Intervention: Provide a “take-home meal box” with the right amount of ingredients and instructions to make one-meal.
Encourage
Building consistency and persistence is key
Entry points aren’t enough for persistent change though. Prolonged growth needs to be built through encouragement.
Here, encouragement can come in the form of sharing progress, but also in the form of having a guide or helpline for instructions or help. Demonstrating success in the form of previous success stories can also help motivate people through difficult stages.
Emphasizing the long term goals can also help, both from a personal standpoint (becoming self-sufficient, healthy), but also in terms of community (being able to cook healthy meals for the family, being able to host my own event)
Possible Intervention: Encourage sharing of stories regarding outcomes with groups or at future events
Expand
Community events also provide an entry point for further community engagement
Engaging further with the community can help ease both for individuals, but also for the event organizers. Linking the two is important in order to scale.
Connecting with local farms to supply the ingredients for an event can help both parties. And informing people about the benefits of locally sourced food can have longer term impacts. Increasing demand for locally sourced food will also help community farms, gardens and stores grow, and in turn, bring down costs. This system will also help people feel more ownership of their personal food rituals and nutrition, as they can directly see the impacts their choices have on the people around them.
Possible Intervention: A platform for members of the community to share resources, events and recipes in order to create a local network
These strategies are designed to “boost” rather than nudge.
But they will also need to work with changes in other areas of the system, including schools and stores, as well as larger changes at a policy level in order to make a positive, persistent change to the system.