{"doi":"10.1016/j.jand.2023.07.024","title":"Across-Agency Partnerships and Within-Agency Capacities Facilitate Holistic, Tailored Approaches to Addressing Food Insecurity: A Qualitative Study","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Capacity-oriented approaches have the potential to reduce food insecurity (FI) and promote nutrition and health equity in low-resource settings. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to identify multilevel capacities in San Diego County, CA that key informants from diverse food- and nutrition-related stakeholder agencies perceived to be helping to address FI. DESIGN: Trained qualitative interviewers conducted face-to-face, semi-structured interviews (30-60 minutes) with key informants. The Socioecological Model and a capacity-oriented approach informed interview guides. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Participants were key informants (n = 23) from diverse purposively sampled stakeholder agencies (n = 16) providing food or nutrition services and programs across San Diego County. Interviews were conducted between April 2019 and December 2021. ANALYSES PERFORMED: Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and checked for accuracy. The research team conducted thematic content analysis to identify themes. RESULTS: Two interrelated themes, within-agency capacities and across-agency partnerships, collectively appeared to influence each individual agency's ability to provide tailored, holistic care to their clients and, thus, expand each agency's reach and impact to address the 4 domains of food security (ie, quantity, quality, psychological, and social). Multilevel (ie, individual, interpersonal, organizational, and macro) within-agency human, social, and cultural capital (eg, volunteers, staff-client relationships, and cultural competency) positively influenced the reach and impact of the individual agencies by enabling them to provide clients with personalized, holistic care. Alongside within-agency capacities, multilevel (ie, interpersonal, organizational, community, and macro levels) across-agency partnerships allowed individual agencies to address FI more effectively and holistically by connecting clients to other services (eg, housing and mental health) related to the circumstances of FI. CONCLUSIONS: In San Diego County, multilevel capacities in the form of within-agency capacities and across-agency partnerships collectively influenced the effectiveness of stakeholder agencies in addressing the 4 domains of FI among at-risk households. Future research should consider how to evaluate the impact of these existing capacities on FI.","journal":"Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics","year":2023,"id":355021,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9513,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1102992,"name":"Lauren Yowell","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102993,"name":"Trisha Molina","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102581,"name":"Courtney Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-0465-6985","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102994,"name":"Jillian Arizcuren","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448918,"name":"Amanda C. McClain","orcid":"0000-0002-4222-7460","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102991,"name":"Lani Morales","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:11.976628Z","pmid":"37516352","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}