Survey Recruitment Bias and Estimates of College Student Food Insecurity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Having valid measures of college student FI is essential for justifying basic-needs services for students. But college student food insecurity (FI) rates vary significantly across institutions, perhaps partially due to differences in non-response bias resulting from participant recruitment strategies. We tested for effects of recruitment method on measured levels of college student FI at three time points (2020, 2021, 2022). Survey response rates varied dramatically across recruitment modalities. Higher FI rates were estimated in low-response-rate survey deliveries. Emailed surveys appear to inflate estimates of student FI. Efforts to increase response rates likely produce more valid estimates of college student FI.