Improving Health Outcomes Through Investigations of Wabanaki Food Systems in Maine

Wabanaki ancestral lands historically provided abundant resources, allowing Wabanaki people to rely exclusively on hunting, fishing, and gathering for all their subsistence needs. However, as their sacred hunting and fishing grounds were lost to colonization, the Wabanaki people lost access to their traditional foods, which has had devastating impacts on the communities' health and well-being. Without access to traditional foods like fiddleheads, corn, beans, squash, wild rice, fish, and many others, the Wabanaki people experienced a surge in many nutrition-related health problems, such as diabetes, obesity, and heart-disease, which have only increased exponentially with time. This Community Research Project (CRP) seeks to improve these health outcomes for Wabanaki people by upscaling the Wabanaki Mobile Food Pantry (WMFP), an existing program that delivers fresh and traditional foods to the Tribal communities. The CRP is grounded in the understanding that food sovereignty is fundamental to achieving and sustaining the health and well-being of Wabanaki communities. The upscaled WMFP aims to increase community access to fresh, traditional, or locally sourced foods, improve community perceptions of food pantries, support cultural connection, promote sustainable, culturally relevant food systems, and increase Tribal members' knowledge and self-efficacy surrounding the cultivation, preparation, and preservation of traditional foods.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Food Insecurity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Upscaling the Wabanaki Mobile Food Pantry Program

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 500
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults age 18 years and older
• Members of a Wabanaki community

Exclusion Criteria:

-None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mobile Food Pantry Community Intervention Group; Community participants exposed to the upscaled Mobile Food Pantry Intervention	Behavioral: Upscaling the Wabanaki Mobile Food Pantry Program; Community-led expansion of a Mobile Food Pantry program designed to improve access to nutritious and culturally appropriate foods and address food insecurity among Wabanaki communities. Outcomes are evaluated using a pre-post study design.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Food Security Status (Hunger Vital Sign / 6-Item HFSSM Score)	Food security will be measured using the validated 6-Item USDA Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) included in the Wabanaki Community Survey. The outcome will report food security status categorized according to standard scoring criteria (e.g., high, marginal, low, very low food security) Unit of Measure: Food security category (per HFSSM scoring) This outcome will be used in subsequent analyses examining its correlation with Mobile Food Pantry utilization.	Baseline (Wabanaki Community Survey pilot period, approximately 3-6 months)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Health-Related Quality of Life (CDC HRQoL Indicators)	Health-related quality of life will be measured using the CDC HRQoL-4 indicators included in the Wabanaki Community Survey. Measures include: Number of physically unhealthy days (past 30 days); Number of mentally unhealthy days (past 30 days); Self-rated general health (5-point scale) Each indicator will be reported separately.; Unit of Measure:; Days (physically unhealthy days, mentally unhealthy days); Units on a 5-point scale (self-rated health) These measures will be used in analyses assessing their correlation with Mobile Food Pantry utilization.	Baseline (during Wabanaki Community Survey data collection period)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness
• Collaborators: Yale University; Washington State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): May 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): September 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 10, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 30, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): May 1, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 1, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 30, 2026
• Last Verified: April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: health disparities; social determinants of health; food insecurity; photovoice; food sovereignty; community-led research; nutrition access; community survey
• Other Study ID Numbers: OT2OD035832 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Individual participant data will not be publicly shared due to Tribal data sovereignty considerations (including Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP) Principals) and community data governance agreements. Data are owned and governed by Wabanaki Tribal partners and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness. Any data sharing will follow Tribal approval processes and established data use agreements.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No