Food Security Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Evidence from a Cohort of Adults in Vermont during the First Year

  1. Ashley C. McCarthy
  2. Emily H. Belarmino
  3. Farryl Bertmann
  4. Meredith T. Niles

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Abstract

This study assessed changes in household food insecurity throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in a cohort of adults in the state of Vermont, USA, and examined the socio-demographic characteristics associated with increased odds of experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic. We conducted three online surveys between March 2020 and March 2021 to collect longitudinal data on food security, use of food assistance programs, and job disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food security was measured using the USDA six-item module. Among the 441 respondents, food insecurity rates increased significantly during the pandemic and remained above pre-pandemic levels a year after the start of the pandemic. Nearly a third (31.6%) of respondents experienced food insecurity at some point during the first year of the pandemic, with 53.1% of food-insecure households being classified as newly food-insecure. The odds of experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic varied based on socio-demographic factors. Households with children (OR 5.5, 95% CI 1.782–16.936, p < 0.01), women (OR 8.1, 95% CI 1.777–36.647, p < 0.05), BIPOC/Hispanic respondents (OR 11.8, 95% CI 1.615–85.805, p < 0.05), and households experiencing a job disruption (OR 5.0, 95% CI 1.583–16.005, p <0.01) had significantly higher odds of experiencing food insecurity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, while respondents with a college degree (OR 0.08; 95% CI 0.025–0.246; p < 0.001) and household income of ≥USD 50,000 (OR 0.01; 95% CI 0.003–0.038; p < 0.001) had lower odds of experiencing food insecurity. These findings indicate that food insecurity continued to be a significant challenge one year after the start of the pandemic, which is important, given the adverse health impacts associated with food insecurity and health disparities among certain socio-demographic groups.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/nu14071358
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.20.21265283: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableWe used four methods for convenience sample recruitment: (1) paid advertisements via Front Porch Forum, a community-level listserv, which reaches approximately 2/3 of Vermont households (30); (2) paid digital ads via Facebook to reach populations under-represented in Front Porch Forum (e.g., males, lower-income households); (3) listservs of community partners; (4) a University of Vermont press release and subsequent newspaper, radio, and television media.
    RandomizationWe used all available data and assumed any missing data were missing at random.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, two limitations of our work are the small sample size and that food insecurity is treated as a binary outcome. Though the use of food assistance programs and/or unemployment did not necessarily move households out of food insecurity, it may have reduced the severity of the food insecurity they were experiencing and/or allowed households to reallocate money they would normally spend on food towards other essentials such as housing and healthcare. Future research using this longitudinal dataset will examine how various interventions, including federal and community food assistance programs and unemployment benefits affected food insecurity outcomes in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in more depth while treating food insecurity as a continuum. Overall, our findings indicate that food insecurity continued to be a significant challenge one year after the start of the pandemic despite loosened restrictions and new policies that aimed to provide economic relief. Trends from previous economic recessions show that it can take years after economic recovery begins for food insecurity rates to return to pre-recession levels (4,46) and the financial hardships experienced during the pandemic will linger for some households even after they return to work, as they catch up on past due bills and replenish depleted savings. As some of the support programs come to an end (e.g., enhanced unemployment insurance, mortgage relief, eviction moratorium, student loan forbearance, etc....

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.20.21265283v1 on medRxiv