Abstract

Problem: Low-income populations experience significant barriers to preventive healthcare access, contributing to delayed screenings, chronic disease burden, and health disparities. Although food pantries are trusted community resources, many lack standardized methods to identify barriers affecting clients’ preventive care access.

Purpose: This project developed and piloted a universal screening tool to identify perceived barriers to preventive healthcare among clients of a Midwestern food pantry.

Intervention: A five-item anonymous paper survey was developed based on evidence-based screening concepts and assessed five domains: personal constraints, social supports and trust, organizational logistics, community infrastructure, and policy barriers. Pantry staff were trained to distribute surveys during routine operations over a six-week implementation period. Measures and

Results: Descriptive statistics were analyzed using Microsoft Excel, including frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, medians, and interquartile ranges. Thirty-seven completed surveys were collected with no missing data. The screening tool demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .83). Policy barriers represented the highest reported concern (M = 3.68, SD = 0.88), followed by personal constraints (M = 3.46, SD = 0.80).

Conclusions: Findings demonstrate that a brief, low-cost screening tool can be successfully implemented in a food pantry setting to identify perceived barriers to preventive care. This approach may support future healthcare-community partnerships and interventions aimed at improving equitable access to preventive health services.

Author Details

Nikole R. Wagner, DNP(c), BSN, RN

Sigma Membership

Non-member

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quality Improvement

Research Approach

Pilot/Exploratory Study

Keywords:

Preventative Healthcare, Preventive Health Services, Barriers to Care, Health Service Accessibility, Social Determinants of Health, Community Health, Public Health, Screening Tool, Medical Screening, Health Equity, Food Pantries, Food Banks

Advisor

Tara Whitmire

Second Advisor

Valerie Anderson

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Nebraska Methodist College

Degree Year

2026

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2026-10-14

Full Text of Presentation

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