Meals on WHeels

Food Delivery to Homebound Seniors During the Pandemic

by Gabriel Berman

BackGround

In the United States, we face the unique challenge of having 27% of our elderly living by themselves, which is more than anywhere else on the planet (Ausubel, 2020). This comes with a series of challenges. For one, a lack of social contacts among older adults leads to worse health outcomes. According to AARP loneliness among seniors is associated with an estimated $6.7 billion annually in additional medicare spending (Flowers et al, 2017).

Beyond the cost of loneliness, there is the issue of hunger. When homebound seniors experience food insecurity, it is unlike any other group, because often seniors lack the ability to access traditional avenues of support. A senior who qualifies for food stamps, for example, must be able to find their way to the store, select the items they require and subsequently bring the items back to their home and prepare the meal so that it is ready to be eaten. While these tasks would be trivial for many, to seniors living with chronic conditions they become all but impossible to accomplish without assistance.

Meals on WHeels

Meals on Wheels describes a series of community-based organizations around the United States that are working to combat senior isolation and make food more accessible. These programs work by having volunteers and staff deliver meals to homebound seniors, providing nutrition as well as companionship and access to social services. These meals are a more accessible means of food security because they deliver pre-packaged, ready to be eaten meals, which illuminate the need for disabled seniors to shop and cook.

Beyond food security, Meals on Wheels is a means of social support for homebound seniors. This operates in two ways. To begin, through repeated deliveries, volunteers and clients form rich, meaningful interpersonal relationships. For many homebound seniors, their Meals on Wheels volunteer is the only person they see on a regular basis (Thomas et al., 2020). Simply by providing companionship, Meals on Wheels combats senior loneliness.

Furthermore, Meals on Wheels are able to use their resources and community rapport to connect clients with whatever means of support they desire or qualify for. Many Meals on Wheels programs work with licensed social workers to provide given support. Furthermore, daily visits from volunteers allow Meals on Wheels to have a general sense of how the senior population is doing, which can protect against abuse.

My CGH experience

Me delivering meals!

In the summer of 2020, I interned at the Meals on Wheels in my hometown, Berkeley, California. In Berkeley, the Meals on Wheels program run is by the city government. While I had originally planned to conduct research in Ecuador, as a continuation of my study away, my project became no longer viable due to the spread of COVID-19. Instead, I found myself back in Berkeley living with my parents with no real plans. It is from here that I began to research places where COVID-19 response were needed, which is how I came upon Meals on Wheels.

COVID-19 has put a strain on the program in unprecedented ways. To begin, Meals on Wheels suddenly saw an immense increase in the number of recipients. With the newfound fear of contracting the virus, many seniors who would not have qualified for the program prior suddenly became eligible. Furthermore, many of the Meals on Wheels volunteers had to stop performing their volunteer work due to being themselves elderly and therefore in high risk groups. Finally, the Meals on Wheels program in the city of Berkeley found itself needing to adjust to the new need of many of its recipients. Beyond supplying the meal for the day, many recipients suddenly required further supplies, such as canned groceries, toilet paper and paper towels.

For my independent project, I worked as an intern at Meals on Wheels helping respond to the problems associated with the pandemic. First off, I began to help to deliver and packing meals, to take on the increased number of recipients and fewer number of volunteers. Secondly, I led an effort to make contact with every Meals on Wheels recipient and coordinate the additional resources needed through collaborating with mutual aid programs. Finally, I conducted a series of ethnographic interviews with Meals on Wheels volunteers, to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on volunteer motivations.

My time at Meals on Wheels gave me an incredible insight into how frontline public health organizations operate. I found a tight community amongst the city employees and made friends with many Berkeley seniors. On a professional level, this experience opened me up to a career in providing social services to seniors. As the baby boomer generation ages, the elderly population of the United States is increasing exponentially (Meola, 2021). This means that any issue we see today, in regard to elderly isolation, is only likely to get worse. With this experience under my belt, I can help tackle these issues by serving the seniors in my community.

Refrences

Ausubel, J. (2020). Older people are more likely to live alone in the U.S. than elsewhere in the world. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://pewrsr.ch/2TV01ao

Flowers, L., Houser, A., Noel-Miller, C., Shaw, J., Bhattacharya, J., Schoemaker, L., & Farid, M. (2017). Medicare spends more on socially isolated older adults. doi:10.26419/ppi.00016.001

Thomas, K., Gadbois, E., Shield, R., Akobundu, U., Morris, A., & Dosa, D. (2020). "It's not just a simple meal. it's so Much MORE": Interactions between meals on Wheels clients and drivers. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7001144/

Meola, A. (2021, January 19). The aging US population is creating many problems regarding elderly healthcare issues. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.businessinsider.com/aging-population-healthcare#:~:text=According%20to%20Census%20Bureau%20projections,400%2Dmillion%20threshold%20in%202058.&text=The%20median%20age%20of%20the,to%20age%2043%20by%202060.

Gabriel Berman

Howdy folks! My name is Gabriel (he/they). I come from Berkeley California, however, have found a home for myself up north in the Twin Cities. At Mac, I studied Anthropology, with a focus on how culture impacts health. Some passions of mine include qualitative research, senior and end of life care, environmental justice and sexual health education. Upon graduating I hope to use my Macalester degree to help pursue justice, particularly with seniors.

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