Creating a Local Community Food Security Profile

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Creating a Local Community Food Security Profile
Iowa State University, Iowa Department of Public
Health, Iowa Nutrition Network and Susan Roberts
Georgeanne Artz Steve Garasky Kim Greder Margie
Hanson Helen Jensen Lois Wright Morton Nick
Paxton
Iowa Food Policy Conference September 5,
2003
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Creating a Local Community Food Security Profile
funded by the Iowa Nutrition Network, IDPH, and
USDA Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program
Kimberly Greder, Steven Garasky, Helen Jensen,
and Lois Wright Morton Iowa State University
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Overview of Food Insecurity

• In 2001, USDA estimates among households
• 89 of households were food secure
• 10.7 of households experienced food insecurity
• 3.3 of households experienced hunger at some
  point during the previous year
• These households include
• 33.6 million people who experienced food
  insecurity
• 6.1 million individuals who experienced hunger

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Food Insecurity

• Food insecurity
• Did not have access at all times to enough food
  for an active and healthy life
• with no need for recourse to emergency food
  sources or other extraordinary coping behaviors
  to meet their basic food needs.
• Hunger
• The uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack
  of food. The recurrent and involuntary lack of
  access to food.

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Food insecure households

• Rates of food insecurity were higher for the
  following groups in the U.S.
• Households with income below the poverty line
  (36.5)
• Households with children, headed by a single
  woman (31.9)
• Black households (21.3)
• Hispanic households (21.8)
• Households in central cities and nonmetro areas

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Resources available to households and individuals

• Federal nutrition and food assistance programs
• Food stamp program
• Targeted programs (WIC)
• National School Lunch, School Breakfast
• Emergency food assistance programs
• Food pantries
• Emergency kitchens
• Informal networks

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Community Food Security

• Community food security concerns the underlying
  social, economic, and institutional factors
  within a community that affect
• the quantity and quality of available food
• the affordability or price of food relative to
  the sufficiency of financial resources available
  to acquire it.

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Community food insecurity

• Inadequate resources to purchase food
• Available resources not accessible to all
  community members
• Food available is not sufficient in quality or
  quantity
• Food is not competitively priced, not affordable
  to all households
• Inadequate food assistance resources
• No local food production resources and little
  support
• There is any significant household food
  insecurity within the community

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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?
Purpose to facilitate decision-making about
programs and policies that affect food security
in your community, not simply to collect data.
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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?

• Goals
• Identify gaps and needs in the community.
• Identify resources, services, and systems that
  could be used to fill gaps and meet needs.
• Provide the basis for a well-constructed action
  plan that reflects the communitys goals, needs,
  and resources.

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But really, why should we do it???
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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?
Many decisions that affect a communitys food
security are made at the local level. Increasing
emphasis is being placed on the importance of
objective, data-based information as a basis for
policy or programming decisions.
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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?

• A community food security profile can help
• build awareness of the extent of a problem
• set goals (e.g. who to target)
• develop intervention strategies (e.g. types of
  programs or outreach)

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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?
Pragmatically Programs increasingly are being
required to document the needs to which they are
responding and the extent to which they are
effective in addressing those needs.
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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?

• A community food security profile can help
• evaluate program effectiveness
• justify existing programs
• motivate creation of new programs
• assist in leveraging public private dollars by
  informing community residents and business,
  civic, and government leaders

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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?

• A food security profile can be an important
  component of other community assessments.
• We know that food security affects other aspects
  of individual and family well being (e.g.
  health).
• Other local programs and departments can use this
  information for planning and evaluation purposes.

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Why Construct a Community Food Security Profile?

• Summary A community food security profile will
• Facilitate the understanding of local food
  security conditions.
• Inform the setting of goals to improve local food
  systems.
• Inform decision-making about policies and actions
  to improve community food security.
• Establish a long-term monitoring system with a
  clear set of indicators.

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Community Food Insecurity

• Consider
• How would you identify food insecurity in your
  community or region?
• What are the questions communities might ask to
  determine the local food insecurity situation?
• What are useful interventions?

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DATA Finding indicators to answer the questions
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• Ways of learning about food insecurity and
• your community food resources
• Existing data
• -data sets
• -community records
• Creating new data
• -surveys
• -key informant
• -community meetings
• -focus groups
• -visual documentaries

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Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit By
Barbara Cohen. ERS Contacts Margaret Andrews and
Linda Scott Kantor ERS E-FAN No. 02-013. 166 pp,
July 2002 This report provides a toolkit of
standardized measurement tools for assessing
various aspects of community food security. It
includes a general guide to community assessment
and focused materials for examining six basic
assessment components related to community food
security. These include guides for profiling
general community characteristics and community
food resources as well as materials for
assessing household food security, food resource
accessibility, food availability and
affordability, and community food production
resources. Data collection tools include
secondary data sources, focus group guides, and a
food store survey instrument. The toolkit was
developed through a collaborative process that
was initiated at the community Food Security
Assessment Conference sponsored by ERS in June
1999. It is designed for use by community-based
nonprofit organizations and business groups,
local government officials, private citizens, and
community planners. Keywords community food
security, community assessment, hunger, food
assistance programs, emergency food providers,
food store access, food affordability, thrifty
food plan, community-supported agriculture
www.ers.usda.gov/publications/efan02013
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Household food security, insecurity, and hunger
Who is food insecure in your community? Seniors,
children, single parent households, specific
races or ethnicities? Are they just food
insecure or also experiencing hunger?
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Community food resource profile Public food
assistance programs. What do they look like?
Which does your community have? Are
there programs that arent available but people
in your community need? How do you know they need
them?
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What kinds of emergency food assistance
are available to community residents? How
are these programs supported? Who is using
them? How well are they meeting community needs?
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Community food resource profile
How do food prices and the number, kinds of and
location of food stores affect access to food?
What are special issues facing low income and
older members of the community that the general
population might not realize are problems?
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What local food production resources are
available? Are they being used to their full
capacity? What new resources should the community
create?
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Community problem solving structure
What agencies, civic groups, organizations, and
firms have an interest in the food infrastructure
of your community? How do they identify food
related problems and work together at
solving them? Are food problems framed as more
than food insecurity- do people talk
about their food system as affecting

everyone (farmers,
processors, businesses, youth,
seniors, low income and just ordinary
people who eat for energy, good
health, and pleasure).
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Community socioeconomic demographic profile
What might be reasons for food insecurity in your
community? Occupations and wage rates, poverty,
lack of transportation, location of retail food
stores
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Community socioeconomic demographic profile
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How does the health of community residents vary
by income (a marker for food insecurity),
age, occupations, and other characteristics?
Community health profiles http//facits.idph.state
.ia.us
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Existing Data Poverty Food Needs
Profile Margie Hanson and Georgeanne Artz
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Creating New Data Food in your
community survey Food pantry survey Market
basket price survey of grocery stores WIC
Creating new data LOIS Indicators we have
used food in your community survey food pantry
survey market basket price survey of grocery
stores WIC
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• Qualitative approaches
• What do we mean by qualitative
• Why? What can I learn?
• Examples
• What knowledge, skills do I need?
• Where can I get support?

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Qualitative Why? What can I learn?

• Descriptive data - tells the story
• Brings meaning that cant be gathered
• through numbers
• Can inform survey development

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Examples

• Focus groups
• In-depth interviews
• Case studies

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Knowledge and Skills Needed

• Strong communication skills- ability to listen
  well
• Small group facilitation skills
• Ability to form the right questions
• (move from grandtour Qs to focused Qs)
• Ability to nurture the discussion, pick up on
• participants cues, and not lead the
  discussion
• Ability to analyze the data and synthesize
• the results

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Accessing Support

• Iowa Hunger Web site
• http//www.extension.iastate.edu/hunger
• USDA Community Food Security Toolkit
• http//www.ers.usda.gov/publications/efan02013/
• Focus Group Kit
• (Morgan Krueger, 1997) http//www.sagepub.com/bo
  ok.aspx?pid3794
• CD Dial (ISU) community survey unit
• http//dbs.extension.iastate.edu/cd-dial/about.as
  p

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• Your Turn
• Choose one question
• 2. Which of the five components are in the
  question?
• 3.Find one or more indicators that you think
• would answer the question.

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Lessons Learned Building Local Support

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One thing I will do as a result of this workshop
is Additional information or support that I
need is