Barriers to Healthy Eating in a Community That Relies on an Emergency Food Pantry.

OBJECTIVE: To explore perceived barriers to healthy eating within a food-insecure community that relies on an emergency food pantry. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using focus groups within an emergency food pantry located in southeastern Pennsylvania. Eleven female participants were recruited from the food pantry to serve as focus group participants and key community informants. Focus group transcripts were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using a constant comparative method. RESULTS: Four themes regarding perceived barriers to healthy eating were identified: (1) knowledge, (2) resources, (3) special dietary needs, and (4) culture and family influences. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Emergent themes from the focus groups identified the perceived barriers to healthy eating within a food-insecure community. These findings may be essential for informing the development of future nutrition education programs and for promoting health in low-income communities.

Assessment and Care of Childbearing Women With Severe and Persistent Mental Illness.

Severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) refers to complex mood disorders that include major depressive disorder with or without psychosis; severe anxiety disorders resistant to treatment; affective psychotic disorders including bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder; and other nonaffective subtypes of schizophrenia. SPMIs affect 1 in 17 people and are among the leading causes of disability and impaired health-related quality of life in the United States. Caring for childbearing women with preexisting SPMI can be challenging for maternal-child health clinicians. This article provides an overview of SPMI during pregnancy and challenges for clinicians, including early identification, accuracy of diagnoses, and appropriate management through care coordination among an interdisciplinary team that includes obstetric providers, psychiatrists, nurses, and others.

Drug shortages and the burden of access to care: a critical issue affecting patients with cancer.

Pharmaceutical drug shortages are multifaceted and complex problems that affect all aspects of health care, including patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, third-party payers, the pharmaceutical industry, and regulators. Drug shortages have increased significantly since 2000, which cause increases in healthcare costs and compromised patient care. New government regulations have led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to focus efforts on updating policies and improving regulation of the pharmaceutical industry to limit and avoid drug shortages. This article discusses the current issues surrounding the pharmaceutical drug shortage and the implications for patients and healthcare providers. A review of the literature presents the multidimensional impact of the pharmaceutical drug shortage, and the analysis shows patients who are most burdened by drug shortages and have experienced substandard care, increased cost of care, and compromised quality of health care.