[PHNUTR-L] Tufts: Food insecurity and food stamps: How is the US doing?

[Kathrynne Holden, MS, RD]

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Public release date: 19-Dec-2005
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/tu-fia121905.php

Contact: Siobhan Gallagher
617-636-6586
Tufts University

Food insecurity and food stamps: How is the US doing?

Research from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at 
Tufts University
Imagine being one of the 38 million people in the United States whose 
family can't count on having enough food throughout the year. According 
to new federal data, the number of families considered "food insecure" 
is growing. The Economic Research Service (ERS) of the US Department of 
Agriculture (USDA) announced in October that household food insecurity 
increased in 2004. What's more, says Parke Wilde, PhD, assistant 
professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at 
Tufts, "this increase represents the largest one-year jump since data 
collection began in 1995." Wilde, a food economist, tracks household 
food insecurity, food stamps, and related measures of hunger.

The percentage of US households classified as insecure rose from 11.2 
percent in 2003 to 11.9 percent in 2004. While this one-year increase 
might not seem like a lot, it represents the fifth straight year of 
worsening food insecurity. Barely 10 percent of US households were food 
insecure in 1999. Wilde illustrates graphically how household food 
insecurity declined between 1995 and 1999, but then increased steadily 
every year from 1999 to 2004. "The top line [of the graph] shows actual 
rates of household food insecurity, and the bottom line reproduces the 
trend line contained in a 2002 USDA report describing intended progress 
toward national goals."

"The country," Wilde says, "is moving further away from its goals. The 
official Healthy People 2010 objective is six percent food insecurity by 
the year 2010. The 'Rome Declaration,' adopted by the US and 185 other 
countries at the 1996 World Food Summit, pledges a commitment to work 
toward the goal of a 50 percent reduction in the number of 
undernourished people by no later than 2015."

Wilde points out that a family's food security status can fluctuate 
greatly from one year to the next. Commenting in a paper that he 
presented earlier this year, Wilde notes: "Households do not come in 
constant 'secure' and 'insecure' varieties. Instead, it appears that 
unobserved hardships strike from time to time, with large effects on 
both Food Stamp Program participation and food security. Unobserved 
hardships (occurrences that are not accounted for in the survey) such as 
a sudden medical emergency would affect food security in households by 
diverting income normally used for food to pay for medical expenses. 
People experiencing an unobserved hardship may be more likely to join 
the Food Stamp Program."

Wilde and his co-author Mark Nord of the ERS, USDA, writing in the 
Review of Agricultural Economics, quantified these year-to-year 
fluctuations as part of a study that sought to measure how the US Food 
Stamp Program influences food security. They used a panel data model 
that sought to identify confounding factors that may have produced 
skewed results in previous analyses. "The study provides, for the first 
time, a dynamic picture of the rates at which families fall into hunger 
or rise out of hunger from one year to the next, using nationally 
representative data." Previous efforts, according to Wilde, did not 
survey the same group of people over time. This new analysis of the data 
compares their food security status in 2001 and 2002.

Wilde advises that, "this topic is sufficiently important to warrant 
using the best possible research designs to ensure that the Food Stamp 
program is producing favorable results and meeting its stated goals."

###

A high resolution graphic is available at the following link: 
http://www.eurekalert.org/images/release_graphics/tu1219_HR

Wilde, P., Nord, M. Review of Agricultural Economics. 27 (3): 1-8. "The 
Effect of Food Stamps on Food Security: A Panel Data Approach."

If you are interested in learning more about these topics, or speaking 
with a faculty member at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and 
Policy at Tufts University, or another Tufts health sciences researcher, 
please contact Siobhan Gallagher at 617-636-6586 or Peggy Hayes at 
617-636-3707.
-- 
Kathrynne Holden, MS, RD < fivestar at nutritionucanlivewith.com >
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