The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased food insecurity in the United States (US). The objective of this study was to understand the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among low-income ...adults in the US as social distancing measures began to be implemented. On 19-24 March 2020 we fielded a national, web-based survey (53% response rate) among adults with <250% of the federal poverty line in the US (
= 1478). Measures included household food security status and COVID-19-related basic needs challenges. Overall, 36% of low-income adults in the US were food secure, 20% had marginal food security, and 44% were food insecure. Less than one in five (18.8%) of adults with very low food security reported being able to comply with public health recommendations to purchase two weeks of food at a time. For every basic needs challenge, food-insecure adults were significantly more likely to report facing that challenge, with a clear gradient effect based on severity of food security. The short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are magnifying existing disparities and disproportionately affecting low-income, food-insecure households that already struggle to meet basic needs. A robust, comprehensive policy response is needed to mitigate food insecurity as the pandemic progresses.
As of this writing, more than 177 000 Americans have died of COVID-19, and nearly 6 million cases have been confirmed in the United States. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated serious ...disparities along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines with lowincome Americans and Black and Hispanic Americans being the most likely to get sick and die from COVID-19. But the case counts, infection rates, and deaths are just the tip ofthe iceberg. The economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has already led to devastating consequences for millions of Americans who were struggling to make ends meet and will continue to exert lasting damages disproportionately felt by lowincome Americans and communities of color.As society shut down to curb the spread of the virus, tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs or saw their incomes dramatically reduced, likely increasing poverty rates.1 As a consequence, Americans struggled to afford food, shelter, and other basic needs, widening existing disparities that will result in long-term health consequences. One immediate consequence of the economic downturn has been apparent since the start ofthe pandemic. Since mid-March 2020, numerous surveys have documented unprecedented levels of food insecurity that eclipse anything seen in recent decades in the United States, including during the Great Recession. Over the past five years, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates of food insecurity in the United States have hovered around 11% to 12%. As of March and April 2020, national estimates of food insecurity more than tripled to 38%.3 In a national survey we fielded in March 2020 among adults with incomes less than 250% of the 2020 federal poverty level (based on thresholds from the US Census), 44% of all households were food insecure including 48% of Black households, 52% ofHispanic households, and 54% of households with children.
To examine national patterns in cooking frequency and diet quality among adults in the USA, overall and by weight-loss intention.
Analysis of cross-sectional 24 h dietary recall and interview data. ...Diet quality measures included total kilojoules per day, grams of fat, sugar and carbohydrates per day, fast-food meals per week, and frozen/pizza and ready-to-eat meals consumed in the past 30 d. Multivariable regression analysis was used to test associations between frequency of cooking dinner per week (low (0-1), medium (2-5) and high (6-7)), dietary outcomes and weight-loss intention.
The 2007-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Adults aged 20 years and over (n 9569).
In 2007-2010, 8 % of adults lived in households in which someone cooked dinner 0-1 times/week and consumed, on an average day, 9627 total kilojoules, 86 g fat and 135 g sugar. Overall, compared with low cookers (0-1 times/week), a high frequency of cooking dinner (6-7 times/week) was associated with lower consumption of daily kilojoules (9054 v. 9627 kJ, P=0·002), fat (81 v. 86 g, P=0·016) and sugar (119 v. 135 g, P<0·001). Individuals trying to lose weight consumed fewer kilojoules than those not trying to lose weight, regardless of household cooking frequency (2111 v. 2281 kJ/d, P<0·006).
Cooking dinner frequently at home is associated with consumption of a healthier diet whether or not one is trying to lose weight. Strategies are needed to encourage more cooking among the general population and help infrequent cookers better navigate the food environment outside the home.
Background/Objectives
Food insecurity has emerged as a critical health issue for older adults. Food insecurity has been shown to disrupt healthy eating patterns, but these associations have not been ...widely studied among older adults. The objectives of the present study were to: (1) examine national trends in food insecurity across a 10‐year period, and (2) evaluate the associations between food insecurity and multiple diet quality indices in a recent and nationally representative sample of adults aged 60 or older.
Design
Cross‐sectional analysis of the 2007–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.
Setting
Nationally representative sample of the United States.
Participants
The analytic sample was comprised of 5,097 adults aged 60 or older, with household incomes at or below 300% of the federal poverty level.
Measurements
Household food security was measured using the 18‐item US Household Food Security Survey Module. Diet was assessed using two 24‐hour dietary recalls. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models examined the associations between household food security and three evidence‐based diet quality indices, adjusting for sociodemographic and health characteristics.
Results
Across the 10‐year period, food insecurity increased significantly from 5.5% to 12.4% among older adults; this increase was more pronounced among lower‐income older adults. From the linear regression models, food insecurity was associated with lower scores on the Healthy Eating Index (β = −1.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) = −3.70, −0.09), the Alternate Healthy Eating Index‐2010 (β = −1.47, 95% CI = −2.51, −0.44), and the Mediterranean Diet Score (β = −0.54, 95% CI = −1.06, −0.01) after multivariate adjustment. Further adjustment for the presence of chronic medical conditions did not attenuate these results.
Conclusion
Food insecurity is associated with lower overall diet quality among older adults, supporting the need for clinical efforts to identify those at risk of food insecurity and public health efforts to alleviate food insecurity and promote healthy eating behaviors among older adults.
Despite the importance of cooking in American life and evidence suggesting that meals cooked at home are healthier, little is known about perceptions of what it means to cook in the United States. ...The objective of this study was to describe perceptions of cooking and factors important to how cooking is perceived and practiced among American adults. Seven focus groups (N = 53; 39 female; 35 Black, 16 White, 2 Asian) were conducted from November 2014 to January 2015 in Baltimore City, Maryland. Participants were recruited from two neighborhoods; one with higher median income and access to healthy food and the other with lower income and low access to healthy food. Focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Participants' perceptions of cooking varied considerably, regardless of neighborhood income or food access, and spanned a continuum from all scratch cooking to anything made at home. Perceptions of cooking incorporated considerations of whether or how food was heated and the degree of time, effort and love involved if convenience foods were used. Key barriers to cooking included affordability, lack of time, and lack of enjoyment. Key facilitators of frequent cooking included extensive organization and time management to enable participants to incorporate cooking into their daily lives. Cooking is a complex concept and not uniformly understood. Efforts to encourage healthy cooking at home should consider the broad spectrum of activities Americans recognize as cooking as well as the barriers and facilitators to preparing food at home. Public health messages to encourage more frequent cooking should account for the heterogeneity in perspectives about cooking. More research should explore differences in perceptions about cooking in other diverse populations.
To examine the association between cooking frequency and Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2015, overall and by income, among US adults.
Cross-sectional analysis using multivariable linear regression models ...to examine the association between cooking frequency and total HEI-2015 score adjusted for sociodemographic variables, overall and stratified by income.
Nationally representative survey data from the USA.
Adults aged ≥20 years (with 2 d of 24 h dietary recall data) obtained from the 2007 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n 8668).
Compared with cooking dinner 0-2 times/week, greater cooking frequency was associated with higher HEI-2015 score overall (≥7 times/week: +3·57 points, P < 0·001), among lower-income adults (≥7 times/week: +2·55 points, P = 0·001) and among higher-income adults (≥7 times/week: +5·07 points, P < 0·001). Overall, total HEI-2015 score was higher among adults living in households where dinner was cooked ≥7 times/week (54·54 points) compared with adults living in households where dinner was cooked 0-2 times/week (50·57 points). In households in which dinner was cooked ≥7 times/week, total HEI-2015 score differed significantly based on income status (lower-income: 52·51 points; higher-income: 57·35 points; P = 0·003). Cooking frequency was associated with significant differences in HEI-2015 component scores, but associations varied by income.
More frequent cooking at home is associated with better diet quality overall and among lower- and higher-income adults, although the association between cooking and better diet quality is stronger among high-income adults. Strategies are needed to help lower-income Americans consume a healthy diet regardless of how frequently they cook at home.
To examine the effects of childhood participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on ...adult food security in the United States.
We used data from the 1984 to 2019 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to follow a balanced panel of 1406 individuals from birth through ages 20 to 36 years. We measured food insecurity from 1999 to 2003 and 2015 to 2019 among those who resided in low-income households during childhood.
Twenty-eight percent of individuals who resided in low-income households during childhood exhibited improved food security status from childhood to adulthood. Those who participated in SNAP and WIC during childhood had 4.16-fold higher odds (95% confidence interval CI = 1.91, 9.03) of being more food secure than those who were eligible for but did not receive SNAP or WIC, and those who participated in SNAP alone had 3.28-fold higher odds (95% CI = 1.56, 6.88).
Participation in social safety net programs such as SNAP and WIC during childhood helps to improve food security across the life course. Our findings add evidence regarding the long-term benefits of participation in SNAP and WIC during childhood. (
. 2022;112(10):1498-1506. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306967).
•A new tool is proposed: the Cooking and Food-Preparation Action Scale (CAFPAS)•CAFPAS measures individuals’ ability to set and achieve provisioning/cooking goals.•Survey sampling and Structural ...Equation Modeling (SEM) validate the CAFPAS.•The CAFPAS shows significant positive correlation with reported home cooking.•The CAFPAS is a structurally valid scale for measuring food-related behavior.
Researchers studying consumer food-behaviors, like cooking, in everyday life require better tools for assessment of food-related abilities. This study presents a measurement tool for assessing cooking and food-preparation practices: the Cooking and Food Provisioning Action Scale (CAFPAS). The CAFPAS is based on the “Food Agency” framework for understanding cooking behavior as sociological “agency” that emerges from the interaction individual abilities and skills and social structure (see Trubek, Carabello, Morgan, & Lahne, 2017; Wolfson et al., 2017). Thus, the scale seeks to measure the degree to which individuals are able to set and achieve cooking and provisioning goals. Potential scale items were generated and screened by experts (N=7). The resulting 70 items, with demographic and validation items, were administered to a development sample of US adults through email listservs (N=445) and administered to an independent validation sample of US adults through Amazon Mechanical Turk (N=498) and both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to evaluate structural stability and generalizability. Composite scale scores were regressed against indicator variables – including the Food Involvement Scale (FIS) and self-reported meals cooked at home – to assess construct validity. Close model fit was achieved using 28 items on three subscales: Food Self-Efficacy, which comprises self-perceptions of cooking and provisioning abilities; Food Attitude, which comprises attitudes towards food and cooking; and Structure, the influence of non-food barriers on provisioning. The model was generalizable up to partial-scalar invariance across samples. In linear regression, CAFPAS scores significantly predicted reported meals cooked per week (+1 meal/week per unit increase in CAFPAS). Thus, the CAFPAS is a structurally valid tool, based in a novel paradigm, for evaluating cooking and food-preparation abilities.
Gun ownership among US women Wolfson, Julia A; Azrael, Deborah; Miller, Matthew
Injury prevention,
02/2020, Letnik:
26, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
IntroductionLittle is known about female gun owners in the USA. We describe the number and type of firearms owned, and reasons for owning, by sex.MethodsAn online survey conducted in 2015 of 3949 US ...adults; cross-tabulations using survey weights generated nationally representative estimates.ResultsTwelve per cent (95% CI 10.6% to 13.6%) of women and 33.3% of men (95% CI 30.3% to 36.5%) personally owned guns. Male and female gun owners are demographically similar and cite similar reasons for owning firearms, but female gun owners own fewer guns (3.6 vs 5.6). Among female gun owners, 40.4% (95% CI 35.5% to 45.5%) own handguns only, whereas 20.7% (95% CI 18.2% to 23.4%) of male gun owners own handguns only. Approximately three of four male (73.4% (95% CI 70.3% to 76.3%)) and female (76.7% (95% CI 71.6% to 81.1%)) handgun owners own guns for protection from strangers. Males and female gun owners are equally likely to store at least one gun loaded and unlocked.ConclusionsMale and female gun owners in the USA are demographically similar, cite similar reasons for owning guns and, despite males owning more guns, are equally likely to store at least one gun loaded and unlocked.
The frequency of cooking at home has not been assessed globally. Data from the Gallup World Poll in 2018/2019 wave (N = 145,417) were collected in 142 countries using telephone and face to face ...interviews. We describe differences in frequency of ‘scratch’ cooking lunch and dinner across the globe by gender. Poisson regression was used to assess predictors of cooking frequency. Associations between disparities in cooking frequency (at the country level) between men and women with perceptions of subjective well-being were assessed using linear regression. Across the globe, cooking frequency varied considerably; dinner was cooked more frequently than lunch; and, women (median frequency 5 meals/week) cooked both meals more frequently than men (median frequency 0 meals/week). At the country level, greater gender disparities in cooking frequency are associated with lower Positive Experience Index scores (−0.021, p = 0.009). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the frequency with which men and women cook meals varied considerably between nations; and, women cooked more frequently than men worldwide. The pandemic, and related ‘stay at home’ directives have dramatically reshaped the world, and it will be important to monitor changes in the ways and frequency with which people around the world cook and eat; and, how those changes relate to dietary patterns and health outcomes on a national, regional and global level.
PDF
