Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Measuring the Many Dimensions of Food Insecurity and its Consequences

(Poverty and Income Policy)

Measuring the nature and consequences of food insecurity in the U.S. is an ongoing challenge.  This panel addresses this challenge by starting with a discussion of issues that arise in developing meaningful measures of food insecurity.  The first paper in the panel addresses the potential for interpreting the USDA food security scale as emerging from an underlying bi-factor model in which adult and child food security are distinct phenomena (rather than two portions of a unidimensional “household food security”).  The importance of understanding and using these food security data appropriately becomes clear in the other three papers in the session, which examine connections between food security and several other facets of well-being.  In the first of these papers, food insecurity is examined alongside mental health in an effort to understand the potential role of food assistance for those who may face both food access and mental health challenges.  The second paper examines linkages between food insecurity and risky behaviors in adolescents that may have long-term consequences.  The session concludes with a study looking at the intergenerational transmission of food insecurity and, in particular, the potential for early food insecurity to compromise educational access for young adults.  The many dimensions examined in this panel help make clear both the challenges of measuring food insecurity and in identifying its many causes and consequences.  However, in bringing these issues to light we are able to continue developing a more solid foundation of understanding food insecurity – an elusive, yet vitally important and policy-relevant concern in the U.S. today.