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The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected populations that were already facing socioeconomic disadvantages and limited access to health care services. The livelihood of millions was further compromised when strict shelter-in-place measures forced them out of their jobs. The way that individuals accessed food during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed as a result of declines in household income, food chain supply disruptions, and social distance measures. This qualitative study examined the food access experiences of participants enrolled in a safety-net health care system-based, free, monthly fruit and vegetable market in the Metro Boston area during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings offer rich qualitative information to understand the financial repercussions of the pandemic on food access.

Objective: The objective of this study is to understand factors that influence the oral health-related behaviors of Latino children, as reported by their parents., Methods: Focus groups and in-depth interviews assessed parental perceptions, experiences, attributions, and beliefs regarding their children's oral health. Guiding questions focused on a) the participant's child dental experiences; b) the impact of dental problems on the child's daily activities, emotions, self-esteem; c) parental experiences coping with child's dental problems; and d) hygienic and dietary habits. Participants were purposively sampled from dental clinics and public schools with a high concentration of Latinos; 92 urban low-income Latino Spanish-speaking parents participated. Transcriptions of the audio files were thematically analyzed using a grounded theory approach., Results: Parents' explanations of their children's dental experiences were categorized under the following themes: caries and diet, access to dental care, migration experiences, and routines., Conclusions: Findings revealed fundamental multilevel (i.e., individual/child, family, and community) factors that are important to consider for future interventions to reduce oral health disparities: behaviors leading to caries, parental knowledge about optimal oral health, access to sugary foods within the living environment and to fluoridated water as well as barriers to oral health care such as lack of health insurance or limited health insurance coverage, among others., (© 2011 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.)

Objective: Many children with asthma do not take medications as prescribed. We studied parents of children with asthma to define patterns of non-concordance between families' use of asthma controller medications and clinicians' recommendations, examine parents' explanatory models (EMs) of asthma, and describe relationships between patterns of non-concordance and EM., Methods: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with parents of children with persistent asthma. Grounded theory analysis identified recurrent themes and relationships between reported medication use, EMs, and other factors., Results: Twelve of the 37 parents reported non-concordance with providers' recommendations. Three types of non-concordance were identified: unintentional--parents believed they were following recommendations; unplanned--parents reported intending to give controller medications but could not; and intentional--parents stated giving medication was the wrong course of action. Analysis revealed two EMs of asthma: chronic--parents believed their child always has asthma; and intermittent--parents believed asthma was a problem their child sometimes developed., Conclusions: Concordance or non-concordance with recommended use of medications were related to EM's and family context and took on three different patterns associated with medication underuse., Practice Implications: Efforts to reduce medication underuse in children with asthma may be optimized by identifying different types of non-concordance and tailoring interventions accordingly.