Addressing Food Insecurity through partnering with the Community Teaching Kitchen on Lifestyle Medicine Hypertension Class
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Publication Date
4-29-2026
Keywords
oaa; gme; oregon gme; milwaukie; milwaukie gme
Disciplines
Cardiology | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Gastroenterology | Medical Nutrition
Abstract
Background: Food insecurity is defined as limited or unreliable access to adequate and nutritious food. In Oregon, approximately 1 in 8 residents experience food insecurity, with rates disproportionately affecting low-income individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, and households with children or elderly individuals. Food insecurity remains a significant threat to our patients’ health and is associated with obesity, malnutrition, and poor mental health. As a primary care provider, I have seen the effects of food insecurity on my patients, but I am thankful for the presence of our Community Teaching Kitchen. The Community Teaching Kitchen (CTK) at Providence Milwaukie provides nutritional counseling, operates a community garden that provides a sustainable source of fresh produce, and manages a family food pantry providing nutritious foods available to patients experiencing food insecurity. CTK serves a vital role in providing reliable access to healthy foods for individuals in our community. However, after HR 1 was passed in July 2025, SNAP benefits were significantly reduced. This severely impacted CTK’s ability to help support our community due to decreased funding and increased need. Our clinic has been implementing a group hypertension class as part of the lifestyle medicine elective. My passion project involved partnering with the CTK for the lifestyle medicine group hypertension class to help provide revenue for the CTK and the family food pantry, while also introducing our patients to this valuable resource. Goals and objectives: To introduce our patients to the services offered by the Community Teaching Kitchen, as well as to create a sustainable source of revenue for the Community Teaching Kitchen so they can continue to provide nutritious food for our patients with food insecurity. Methods: We adapted the 4-week lifestyle medicine group hypertension course to incorporate services offered by CTK. The classes are scheduled on 3/11, 3/18, 3/25 and 4/1. One of the sessions of the class will be held in the community garden, where we will discuss the importance of exercise and demonstrate a meditation class. The final session will be held at the teaching kitchen, where we will demonstrate how to cook a DASH diet meal by using resources and a recipe provided by the CTK staff. We will measure patient learning and satisfaction with pre and post-course surveys. Results: In order to increase recruitment, I personally reached out to my panel of patients who had uncontrolled hypertension via Mychart messages. We were able to recruit 7 patients (of which 6 attended the first class), thereby meeting our goal of 6-8 participants. We will be able to share the proceeds of the class (each session is billed as a level 3 visit) with our Community Teaching Kitchen, which will be able to fund the family food pantry. We have collected pre-course survey on baseline hypertension knowledge and plan to compare this to post-course survey results to evaluate patient learning. We will also analyze patient satisfaction scores on the post-course survey. Discussion/conclusion: Food insecurity is a highly prevalent yet under-addressed determinant of health among our patients. Our Community Teaching Kitchen has been essential in helping our patients with food insecurity by providing nutritious food and dietary counseling. By partnering with the CTK for our group lifestyle medicine hypertension class, we can introduce our patients to this valuable resource as well as provide a sustainable source of income for our community food pantry to continue to support our patients with food insecurity.
Area of Special Interest
Cardiovascular (Heart)
Area of Special Interest
Digestive Health
Specialty/Research Institute
Population Health
Specialty/Research Institute
Graduate Medical Education
Specialty/Research Institute
Nutrition
Comments
Citation: Oregon Food Bank. (2026, February 10). Oregon Food Bank’s 2026 legislative priorities. Oregon Food Bank. https://www.oregonfoodbank.org/posts/ oregon-food-banks-2026-legislative-priorities