240 Community Participant-based Study Design: Use of Virtual Focus Groups to Explore Acceptability of a Cooking Intervention among African-American Women Living in Washington, D.C.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: African-Americans are at increased risk for nutrition disparities; home cooking is a strategy to optimize dietary quality. to develop a cooking intervention, a mixed-methods community-based participatory, acceptability study was conducted to understand cooking behaviors, options for intervention content, and implementation factors. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Self-identified African-American adults were recruited from a larger community-based study within Washington, D.C. Five moderated virtual focus groups with four participants in each group were conducted in March and April of 2021. A semi-structured moderator’s guide focused on cooking, meal habits, food choices, and the proposed cooking intervention was utilized. Qualitative data collected were verbatim transcriptions and notes from research team members. Thematic analysis was conducted using an iterative process among research team members. Participant validation interviews were conducted following the research team analysis. Electronic self-administered surveys were used to measure demographic, food environment, cooking behavior, health behavior, and psychosocial variables. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Study participants (n=20 females, mean age 60.1 years) lived in low-food resource neighborhoods but reported high food security (n=14). Barriers to the intervention included traveling distances to other neighborhoods for produce, poor quality of vegetables and fruit within neighborhood stores, lack of trustworthiness from neighborhood store experiences, perception of decreased cooking skills, and competing priorities related to time and weekday schedules. Motivators included health promotion for self, family, community, and enjoyment from cooking. Virtual or in-person sessions were suggested. Intervention options included costs of recipe ingredients, using recipes with ingredient flexibility, nutrition information, and provisioning of or compensation for ingredients used in virtual classes. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Use of virtual focus groups for a participant-based design of a cooking intervention among African American adults living in low-food access neighborhoods provided acceptability results that were food and home environments contextual and provided barriers and motivators to participation and implementation of behavior from the intervention.