O14 Cultural Adaptation of a Cooking Curriculum for Burundian and Congolese Refugee Families

Background Sub-Saharan African refugees in the United States have reported low food security related to dietary acculturation issues. However, there is no existing evidence-based or culturally-tailored cooking programs to address the unique barriers to food security for this population. Objective To culturally adapt a cooking curriculum for Burundian and Congolese refugees living in the Southeastern region of the US to address their unique dietary acculturation barriers to food security. Study Design, Settings, Participants A four-phase curriculum adaptation process (information gathering [literature review, researcher informed, and formative research interviews (n = 18)], preliminary adaptation design [data incorporation and steering committee (n = 5)], pilot testing [n = 10 youth/adult dyads], and refinement) was applied to the existing evidence-based iCook 4-H curriculum using a five strategy (peripheral, evidential, linguistic, constituent-involving and sociocultural) cultural adaptation framework. Measurable Outcome/Analysis A multi-phase, two-cycle coding analytic process was completed within NVivo 12. First cycle attribute and descriptive coding, then second cycle pattern coding were applied to transcripts. Codes were organized into hierarchical maps and coding matrices for direct content analysis. Results Seventeen adaptations were made to the iCook curriculum, derived from varying combinations of four data sources (literature review, researcher informed, target population and steering committee), applying all five cultural adaptation strategies. A majority of the curriculum adaptations were derived from two or more data sources (71%) and were categorized within multiple adaptation strategies (88%). Conclusion This study provided a community-based cultural adaptation process that could be used with various populations to address unique barriers and facilitators to food security. Future studies are needed to test the new culturally adapted curriculum, to evaluate the impact on the effectiveness to improve food security status among refugees. Funding NIFA.