Pilot Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program in an Urban Public Healthcare System: Evaluating Demand and Implementation.

Lifestyle interventions that optimize nutrition, physical activity, sleep health, social connections, and stress management, and address substance use, can reduce cardiometabolic risk. Despite substantial evidence that healthful plant-based diets are beneficial for long-term cardiometabolic health and longevity, uncertainty lies in how to implement plant-based lifestyle programs in traditional clinical settings, especially in safety-net contexts with finite resources. In this mixed-methods implementation evaluation of the Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program piloted in a large public healthcare system, we surveyed participants and conducted qualitative interviews and focus groups with stakeholders to assess program demand in the eligible population and feasibility of implementation within the safety-net setting. Program demand was high and exceeded capacity. Participants' main motivations for joining the program included gaining more control over life, reducing medication, and losing weight. The program team, approach, and resources were successful facilitators. However, the program faced administrative and payor-related challenges within the safety-net setting, and participants reported barriers to access. Stakeholders found the program to be valuable, despite challenges in program delivery and access. Findings provide guidance for replication. Future research should focus on randomized controlled trials to assess clinical outcomes as a result of program participation.

Stronger together than apart: The role of social support in adopting a healthy plant-based eating pattern.

The influence of the social environment on health behaviors is well documented. In recent years, there is mounting evidence of the health benefits of a plant-based eating pattern, yet little is known about how the social environment impacts the adoption of a plant-based eating pattern, specifically. In this convergent parallel mixed-methods study, we analyzed quantitative survey data and qualitative focus group data to assess how social support impacted participants of a lifestyle medicine intervention focused on the adoption of a plant-predominant eating pattern. Regression analysis of survey data showed a positive association between positive social support and healthy plant-based eating, while no association was found between negative social support and healthy plant-based eating. Focus groups yielded further insights into how positive aspects of social relationships with family and friends facilitated the adoption of plant-predominant eating among participants. Qualitative findings also showed the ways in which negative social support hindered progress to adopt a plant-predominant eating pattern including not eating the same foods as participants, being judgmental about new dietary behaviors, and encouraging participants to eat non-plant-based foods. Taken together, social support appears to be an important factor for individuals adopting a plant-predominant eating pattern. Future research is needed to explore mechanisms to enhance positive social support while mitigating negative aspects of social relationships for individuals participating in similar lifestyle medicine interventions that emphasize on plant-predominant eating.

Patient-Reported Outcomes from a Pilot Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program in a Safety-Net Setting.

Lifestyle medicine interventions that emphasize healthy behavior changes are growing in popularity in U.S. health systems. Safety-net healthcare settings that serve low-income and uninsured populations most at risk for lifestyle-related disease are ideal venues for lifestyle medicine interventions. Patient-reported outcomes are important indicators of the efficacy of lifestyle medicine interventions. Past research on patient-reported outcomes of lifestyle medicine interventions has occurred outside of traditional healthcare care settings. In this study, we aimed to assess patient-reported outcomes on nutrition knowledge, barriers to adopting a plant-based diet, food and beverage consumption, lifestyle behaviors, self-rated health, and quality-of-life of participants in a pilot plant-based lifestyle medicine program in an urban safety-net healthcare system. We surveyed participants at three time points (baseline, 3 months, 6 months) to measure change over time. After 6 months of participation in the program, nutrition knowledge increased by 7.2 percentage points, participants reported an average of 2.4 fewer barriers to adopting a plant-based diet, the score on a modified healthful plant-based diet index increased by 5.3 points, physical activity increased by 0.7 days per week while hours of media consumption declined by 0.7 h per day, and the percentage of participants who reported that their quality of sleep was "good" or "very good" increased by 12.2 percentage points. Our findings demonstrate that a lifestyle medicine intervention in a safety-net healthcare setting can achieve significant improvements in patient-reported outcomes. Key lessons for other lifestyle medicine interventions include using a multidisciplinary team; addressing all pillars of lifestyle medicine; and the ability for patients to improve knowledge, barriers, skills, and behaviors with adequate support.

Change in cardiometabolic risk factors in a pilot safety-net plant-based lifestyle medicine program.

Introduction: Interventions emphasizing healthful lifestyle behaviors are proliferating in traditional health care settings, yet there is a paucity of published clinical outcomes, outside of pay-out-of-pocket or employee health programs. Methods: We assessed weight, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), blood pressure, and cholesterol for 173 patients of the Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program piloted in a New York City safety-net hospital. We used Wilcoxon signed-rank tests to assess changes in means, from baseline to six-months, for the full sample and within baseline diagnoses (i.e., overweight or obesity, type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia). We calculated the percentage of patients with clinically meaningful changes in outcomes for the full sample and within diagnoses. Findings: The full sample had statistically significant improvements in weight, HbA1c, and diastolic blood pressure. Patients with prediabetes or overweight or obesity experienced significant improvements in weight and those with type 2 diabetes had significant improvements in weight and HbA1c. Patients with hypertension had significant reductions in diastolic blood pressure and weight. Data did not show differences in non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C), but differences in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were approaching significance for the full sample and those with hyperlipidemia. The majority of patients achieved clinically meaningful improvements on all outcomes besides systolic blood pressure. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that a lifestyle medicine intervention within a traditional, safety-net clinical setting improved biomarkers of cardiometabolic disease. Our findings are limited by small sample sizes. Additional large-scale, rigorous studies are needed to further establish the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine interventions in similar settings.

Social needs screening and referral in pediatric primary care clinics: a multiple case study.

BACKGROUND: Unmet social risks such as housing, food insecurity and safety concerns are associated with adverse health outcomes in adults and children. Experimentation with social needs screening in primary care is currently underway throughout the United States. Pediatric primary care practices are well-positioned to amplify the effects of social needs screening and referral programs because all members of the household have the potential to benefit from connection to needed social services; however, more research is needed to determine effective implementation strategies. METHODS: To describe common implementation barriers and facilitators, we conducted 48 in-depth qualitative interviews with leadership, providers and staff between November 2018 and June 2019 as part of a multiple case study of social needs screening and referral programs based out of four pediatric ambulatory care clinics in New York City. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using a protocol-driven, template-based rapid analysis approach designed for pragmatic health services research. In addition to analyzing content for our study, we delivered timely findings to each site individually in order to facilitate quality improvement changes in close-to-real time. RESULTS: Effective implementation strategies included tailoring screening tools to meet the needs of families seen at the clinic and reflect the resources available in the community, hiring dedicated staff to manage the program, building strong and lasting partnerships with community-based organizations, establishing shared communication methods between partners, and utilizing technology for efficient tracking of screening data. Respondents were enthusiastic about the value of their programs and the impact on families, but remained concerned about long-term sustainability after the grant period. CONCLUSION: Implementation of social needs screening and referral interventions is dependent on contextual factors including the nature of family needs and the availability of intraorganizational and community resources to address those needs. Additional research is needed to prospectively test promising implementation strategies that were found to be effective across sites in this study. Sustainability of programs is challenging, and future research should also explore measurable outcomes and payment structures to support such interventions in pediatric settings, as well as aim to better understand caregiver perspectives to improve engagement.