Co-Developing Solutions: A Checklist to Assess the Accessibility of Recipes Available on Trusted Canadian Health Websites

Introduction: Between 3.4 to 5 million Canadians experience cognitive disabilities, hindering their ability to independently select and prepare healthy foods. Additionally, this population is also more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, further exacerbating barriers to healthy eating.   

Goals and Methods: The goal of the project was to develop a recipe selection checklist to identify accessible healthy recipes. This project used a community-based research approach and was conducted in partnership with Open Collaboration for Cognitive Accessibility. A steering committee, including three advisors with lived experience, provided iterative feedback throughout the project, including interview questions and research procedures. An interviewer trained in accessibility practices conducted two semi-structured virtual interviews on Teams with eight individuals with cognitive disabilities to explore healthy eating barriers. Interviews were observed by a student researcher, electronically transcribed, and manually verified for accuracy. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to identify themes, which were reviewed and refined in collaboration with the steering committee to generate the checklist. The checklist was then applied to 12 Canadian websites to identify accessible recipes.   

Results: The checklist criteria were: 1) available on a trusted health organization’s website; 2) takes less than 30 minutes to prepare; 3) takes less than 1 hour to cook; 4) at most 10 ingredients; 5) ingredients are easy to find; 6) less than $10 CAD per portion; 7) contains carbohydrates, protein and vegetables; and 8) makes at least 4 portions. Of the 597 recipes found on 12 trusted Canadian health organization websites, only 73 (12%) met all 8 of the criteria for accessibility.   

Conclusion: This study highlights the lack of affordable, healthy, and accessible recipes on trusted Canadian health websites, emphasizing the importance of collaborative qualitative inquiry in addressing food equity barriers. This checklist can be a practical tool to identify and remove accessibility barriers in publicly available recipes.