Very low food security in young citizen children correlates with mothers’ foreign birth; associations vary by mothers’ length of stay in the US

Abstract

This study's objective was to test whether very low food security (VLFS) in children, the most severe food insecurity measured in the US, is related to mothers’ foreign birth, & whether mothers’ length of stay (LOS) in the US affects that relationship. Data are from ongoing Children's HealthWatch research on 40,460 children ages <48 months whose mothers were interviewed at pediatric clinics & hospital emergency departments in Baltimore, Boston, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia & Washington, DC June 1998‐December 2011. IRB approval was obtained at each site, & renewed annually. In multivariate logistic regression models adjusted for site & mothers’ characteristics, children of foreign‐born mothers had adjusted odds of having VLFS in children 194% greater than children of US‐born mothers. In models using data stratified by mothers’ LOS in the US, children of mothers in the US >;10 yrs had adjusted odds of VLFS in children 44% lower than children of mothers in the US <5 yrs. The goal of ending child hunger (VLFS in children) in the US by 2015 is unlikely to be achieved without targeted support for families with recent immigrant mothers. This project was supported with a grant from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research through funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food & Nutrition Service, contract number AG‐3198‐B‐10–0028.