{"doi":"10.1093/tbm/ibaf016","title":"“We didn’t turn away people”: Perspectives of key informants at stakeholder agencies in San Diego County, CA in meeting the food insecurity demands during the COVID-19 pandemic","abstract":"BACKGROUND: The increase in food insecurity (FI) during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in greater demand for food- and nutrition-related services. Yet, little is known about the experiences of local food- and nutrition-related agencies and how they responded to address the increased need. PURPOSE: We aimed to elucidate the perspectives and experiences of key informants from diverse food- and nutrition-related stakeholder agencies in addressing FI in San Diego County, CA during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The Socioecological Model and a capacity-oriented approach informed this qualitative study. Trained researchers conducted semi-structured interviews virtually on Zoom with 20 key informants from 14 food- and nutrition-related stakeholder agencies and analyzed data using thematic content analysis. RESULTS: Three linked themes emerged relating to how agencies addressed FI during the COVID-19 pandemic: (i) the pandemic uniquely influenced the agencies and the services they provided by presenting both challenges (e.g. limited in-person contact created distinct barriers) and opportunities (e.g. charitable contributions and federal funding increased); (ii) agencies leveraged new and existing within-agency capacities (e.g. adaptability, volunteers) and across-agency partnerships to address the increased demand; and (iii) agencies became forward-thinking as a result of the pandemic (e.g. focused on intentional and innovative strategic goals). CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic influenced how food- and nutrition-related stakeholder agencies provided services, leading agencies to create new and leverage existing within-agency capacities and across-agency partnerships and to prioritize forward-thinking goals. Future research should consider the long-term implications of the pandemic on the effectiveness of agency services.","journal":"Translational Behavioral Medicine","year":2025,"id":567278,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9551,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1471704,"name":"Katia Enns","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102993,"name":"Trisha Molina","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1471705,"name":"Edgar B Doolan","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448918,"name":"Amanda C. McClain","orcid":"0000-0002-4222-7460","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102581,"name":"Courtney Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-0465-6985","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":20,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:44.340853Z","pmid":"40449011","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":[]}