Food delivery app seeks to reduce food insecurity, social isolation for elderly

Research & Innovation

Jayme Blaschke | October 20, 2022

Elderly people across Central Texas could soon use a new piece of technology from Texas State University, developed with federal grant funds, to combat social isolation and food insecurity, while improving their overall health and wellness.

Larry Fulton, a professor in the School of Health Administration, received a $2.76 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a food delivery application for underserved elderly populations in Central Texas.

Fulton’s multidisciplinary team will evaluate and sustain a scalable, non-traditional, multi-platform, food delivery application called NUEVA (Nutrition for Underserved Elderly Via Application). This application is intended to have a wide array of positive effects: improve food and nutrition security, reduce loneliness and enhance socialization and improve the health and mental health of elderly populations of low socioeconomic status. Ideally, the application will also reduce food loss and waste in Central Texas.

NUEVA will create a three-way link among underserved elderly, charitable transportation and food providers that will develop and expand a network of community stakeholders, beneficiaries and donors. The embedded video conferencing features of NUEVA will support contactless socialization between the delivery personnel and the elderly, while the optimized just-in-time delivery model is designed to significantly reduce food waste.

This one-year grant has the potential to be renewed for up to five years of funding support. The NUEVA study is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), HHS as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2.76 million with 78% funded by ACL/HHS and 22% funded by non-government sources. The contents of the research are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.