Indicator: Food security

Definition

Individuals have access to enough affordable, nutritious food.

Recommended Metric(s)

Percentage of individuals with high or marginal food security, as measured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Security Survey Module

Percentage of eligible individuals participating in SNAP

Percentage of individuals living in a census track with low access to healthy food, as defined by the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas

Type(s) of Data Needed

Survey data; administrative data

Why it matters

Food security and access to healthy food are related to improved health, emotional well-being, and social functioning.1 Conversely, food insecurity is correlated with a host of negative outcomes, including deficits in children’s development2 and college students’ lower academic success.3, 4 Yet marginalized populations are more likely to experience food insecurity. For example, food insecurity in Black and Latino households is twice the rate as that in White households.5 Families with lower incomes are also more likely to be food insecure6 and have access to less nutritious food.7 Although participation in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)8 reduces the prevalence of very low food insecurity by about one-third, not all eligible individuals enroll in this program. Participation in SNAP is particularly low among college students: less than one-third of eligible college students enroll in SNAP, compared to 85 percent of all eligible individuals.9

What to know about measurement

The USDA has developed survey modules to measure food security that can be used across settings. Varying survey lengths (in 18-, 10-, and 6-item modules) are available, with versions for children and youth, as well as translations into Spanish and Chinese. Starting in 2022, the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will ask about food security among college students using the USDA items.

In addition to measuring food security through the USDA survey, we recommend that E-W systems track participation in SNAP among eligible individuals. This information can be used to support families with low incomes in enrolling in these programs. However, we caution that participation in nutrition assistance programs such as Free and Reduced-Price Meals (FARMS) and SNAP are considered weak measures of food security.10 For example, more than 1 in 10 households receiving SNAP benefits still experience very low levels of food security.11

Finally, we recommend measuring neighborhood access to nutritious food sources through the Food Access Research Atlas, which accounts for the presence and distance of healthy food sources in an area, family income, vehicle availability, and transportation.

E-W Case Studies

Tulsa map
ImpactTulsa’s Child Equity Index
ImpactTulsa partnered with Tulsa Public Schools to build a data visualization tool for exploring how environmental conditions vary across neighborhoods and their relationships to academic outcomes.
View Case Study

Source frameworks

This indicator appears in three source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our proposed measure builds on a measure of food security proposed by StriveTogether, which includes the “proportion of households experiencing food insecurity” and “proportion of eligible students participating in the School Breakfast Program.”

References

    • 10

      Webb, P., Coates, J., Frongillo, E. A., Lorge Rogers, B., Swindale, A., & Bilinsky, P. (2006). Measuring household food insecurity: Why it’s so important and yet so difficult to do. The Journal of Nutrition, 136(5), 1404S–1408S. https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/136.5.1404S 

    • 11

      See Nord & Golla (2009).

    • 1

      Kamimura, A., Higham, R., Panahi, S., Lee, E., Griffin, R. J., Sundrud, J., & Lucero, M. (2022). How food insecurity and financial difficulty relate to emotional well-being and social functioning. Southern Medical Journal, 115(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.14423/SMJ.0000000000001342

    • 2

      Hines, C. T., Markowitz, A. J., & Johnson, A. D. (2021). Food insecurity: What are its effects, why, and what can policy do about it? Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(2), 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/23727322211032250 

    • 3

      Goldrick-Rab, S., Richardson, J., Schneider, J., Hernandez, A., & Cady, C. (2018). Still hungry and still homeless in college. Wisconsin Hope Center. https://hope4college.com/still-hungry-and-homeless-in-college/

    • 4

      Phillips, E., McDaniel, A., & Croft, A. (2018). Food insecurity and academic disruption among college students. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 55(4), 353–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2018.1470003

    • 5

      Odoms-Young, A. M. (2018). Examining the impact of structural racism on food insecurity: Implications for addressing racial/ethnic disparities. Family and Community Health, 41, S3–S6. https://doi.org/10.1097/FCH.0000000000000183 

    • 6

      Walker, R. J., Garacci, E., Dawson, A. Z., Williams, J. S., Ozieh, M., & Egede, L. E. (2021). Trends in food insecurity in the United States from 2011 to 2017: Disparities by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and income. Population Health Management, 24(4). https://doi.org/10.1089/pop.2020.0123 

    • 7

      Hilmers, A., Hilmers, D. C., & Dave, J. (2012). Neighborhood disparities in access to healthy foods and their effects on environmental justice. American Journal of Public Health, 102(9), 1644–1654. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300865 

    • 8

      Nord, M., & Golla, M. (2009). Does SNAP decrease food insecurity? Untangling the self-selection effect. Economic Research Report No. (ERR-85), U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=46297