Abstract
Household-level food insecurity is one of the largest public health concerns facing millions of people in the United States today. Although recent work has highlighted gaps in food security rates between minority and non-Hispanic white households, little is known about how these households evolve through the overall distribution of food security over time. As such, we employ nonparametric estimators of distributional mobility to household-level data on food security from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 study. Results suggest that Hispanic and non-Hispanic white households with children are equally mobile in the long run whereas non-Hispanic black households with children tend to be less upwardly mobile and more downwardly mobile in food security status over time.
Highlights
Food insecurity is one of the most significant public health concerns facing the United States today
Looking at the corresponding figure to assess the black-white gap in upward mobility, we find that black households, unlike the Hispanic households, had a 17 percentage point lower probability of transitioning from a state of food insecurity and into a state of high food security over the same time period
Household-level food insecurity is a considerable public health concern faced by millions of individuals in the United States today
Summary
Food insecurity is one of the most significant public health concerns facing the United States today. 281), “the prevalence of food insecurity is of great concern to policy-makers and program administrators, a concern heightened by its many demonstrated negative health consequences.”. This is true when looking at childhood health outcomes. Figures from 2016 suggest that 12.3% of U.S households (15.6 million households) were food insecure, meaning these households were classified as lacking consistent access to food required for an active, healthy life (Coleman-Jensen et al, 2017) Among these 15.6 million food insecure households, 6.1 million were classified as being very low food secure
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