High food insecurity in Latinx families and associated COVID-19 infection in the Greater Bay Area, California

  1. Milagro Escobar
  2. Andrea DeCastro Mendez
  3. Maria Romero Encinas
  4. Sofia Villagomez
  5. Janet M. Wojcicki

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Background

Food insecurity impacts nearly one-in-four Latinx households in the United States and has been exacerbated by the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

We examined the impact of COVID-19 on household and child food security in three preexisting, longitudinal, Latinx urban cohorts in the San Francisco Bay Area ( N  = 375 households, 1875 individuals). Households were initially recruited during pregnancy and postpartum at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) and UCSF Benioff prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. For this COVID-19 sub-study, participants responded to a 15-min telephonic interview. Participants answered 18 questions from the US Food Security Food Module (US HFSSM) and questions on types of food consumption, housing and employment status, and history of COVID-19 infection as per community or hospital-based testing. Food security and insecurity levels were compared with prior year metrics.

Results

We found low levels of household food security in Latinx families (by cohort: 29.2%; 34.2%; 60.0%) and child food security (56.9%, 54.1%, 78.0%) with differences between cohorts explained by self-reported levels of education and employment status. Food security levels were much lower than those reported previously in two cohorts where data had been recorded from prior years. Reported history of COVID-19 infection in households was 4.8% (95% Confidence Interval (CI); 1.5–14.3%); 7.2% (95%CI, 3.6–13.9%) and 3.5% (95%CI, 1.7–7.2%) by cohort and was associated with food insecurity in the two larger cohorts ( p  = 0.03; p  = 0.01 respectively).

Conclusions

Latinx families in the Bay Area with children are experiencing a sharp rise in food insecurity levels during the COVID-19 epidemic. Food insecurity, similar to other indices of poverty, is associated with increased risk for COVID-19 infection. Comprehensive interventions are needed to address food insecurity in Latinx populations and further studies are needed to better assess independent associations between household food insecurity, poor nutritional health and risk of COVID-19 infection.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1186/s40795-021-00419-1
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.11.20210906: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: For those participants who were interested, we obtained verbal consent and participants took part in a 15-minute interview.
    IRB: The Committee on Human Research (CHR), the UCSF Institutional Review Board approved all aspects of the study (IRB numbers 11-06334; 16-06163; 16-18535).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Scoring was done automatically by REDCap, with higher scores indicative of higher level of food insecurity.
    REDCap
    suggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)
    Food assistance information was collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic as part of our previous longitudinal data collection (self-reported participation in the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children’s program (WIC) or participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; previously known as food stamps)).
    Nutrition Assistance Program
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.11.20210906v1 on medRxiv