Addressing Food Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Academic Research Group's Response to a Major Social Determinant of Health.

Abstract

We developed and implemented a novel food assistance intervention to address rapidly increasing food insecurity during COVID-19. Parents of children from underserved schools enrolled in our National Institutes of Health-funded research participated in a food security needs assessment survey. The tool used validated instruments to assess household food security status and barriers to accessing food assistance. The intervention provided a resource information sheet or direct home food deliveries. We evaluated the intervention using a quasi-experimental design, with baseline serving as the control. One hundred and ninety (190) parents participated. Of the completed responses, 46.0% were food-insecure, 41.0% faced one or more barriers, and 17.9% families qualified for home deliveries. Post-intervention, 72.4% of high-needs families reported deliveries helped "to a great extent"; 29.6% reported no remaining barriers (p<.005, Fischer's exact test). Implementation of a novel food security research tool and two-level food assistance intervention was feasible, highlighting the role community-based researchers can serve in supporting research participants' emerging needs as they become evident.