COVID-19 Food Security Project

Author(s): Allie Phillips, Zachary Wolfson

Mentor(s): Lawrence Cheskin, Nutrition and Food Studies; Matthew Rossheim, Global and Community Health; Alison Evans Cuellar, Health Administration and Policy; Zimako Chuks , Erika Kennedy , Graduate Assistants

Abstract

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic has significantly altered the lives of billions of people across the globe and hundreds of millions of people in the United States. One of the issues impacted most severely by the pandemic is food security, a measure of people’s ability to access food that fulfills their dietary needs and does not exceed their economic capabilities (World Food Summit, 1996). The COVID-19 crisis exacerbated food security challenges by disrupting food systems and restricting physical and economic access to resources. COVID-19-related relief programs disproportionately affected subpopulations such as university students, as many were ineligible. University students were especially affected by the pandemic due to campus closures and changes in employment status. Students who worked fewer hours than before the pandemic saw a decrease in food security compared to their peers whose employment situation did not change (Mialki et al., 2021). Prior to COVID-19, approximately 60% of college aged adults experience a decrease in food security at any one time during their college careers at 4-year institutions (AACU 2019). Food security challenges are often associated with other challenges for students such as lower grades, housing insecurity, and mental health issues. For example, Fang et al. (2021) found that food security challenges are associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. While previous studies have examined the characteristics that negatively impact food security in college students, specifically employment and student demographics, this project examines the relationship between COVID-19 and student perceptions of their personal health and wellbeing by studying the health effects that limited food availability, choice, and accessibility had amongst college students. This information can be instrumental in helping administrators and legislators implement policies to better address the dietary needs and wellbeing of students in their respective universities and states.

Video Transcript

Zach Wolfson: Welcome everybody to our OSCAR Summer Team Impact Project presentation. Today we’re going to be examining COVID-19’s impact on food security in George Mason undergraduate students. So firstly here, I’m going to introduce you to some of our wonderful student researchers. We have Emma, who is a highschool volunteer, myself, a student at George Mason University, Allie, who is a student researcher from William and Mary, and Zimako, who is our fantastic Graduate Research Lead. Zach Wolfson: So, food security, what is it exactly? The COVID-19 Pandemic has significantly altered the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the United States. One of the issues impacted most severely by the pandemic is food security which, according to the World Food Summit, is a measure of people’s ability to access food that fulfills their dietary needs and does not exceed their economic capabilities. There are some significantly important questions that must be explored in terms of how COVID-19 may have exacerbated food security issues for college students, particularly as they were often ineligible for COVID-19 relief programs. This topic is important as food security challenges are often associated with lower grades, housing insecurity, and mental health issues. In a university environment, this is particularly troubling. We hope that, with this research, we can provide valuable insights into what universities can do to better address the needs of college students whose food security may have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Allie Phillips: So, I’m going to be talking about our project’s methods of approach. The overarching goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of how Mason students’ lives were altered in various ways due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we conducted semi-structured in-person interviews all led by student researchers. We asked open-ended questions about their socioeconomic status, gender, race, and ethnicity as well as other challenges they may have faced during this time. To the best of our ability, we encouraged unique, in-depth responses from participants, as we wanted each interview to run like a casual conversation rather than interrogation. We were able to interview over 130 undergraduate students here at Mason, all of whom took classes after March 2020. They were recruited to participate via email invitation sent out to a multitude of student organizations and clubs back in late May and early June, and they were each compensated with a $25 gift card. Interviews were audio recorded and automatically transcribed through zoom, though all of the transcriptions needed a little manual perfecting afterward. Then, student researchers attempted to draw out a variety of themes pertaining to academic, economic, social relationship, mood and mental health, behavior, housing, substance use, and belief factors. Our group analyzed these common themes and how they intersected between to make conclusions about student food security. Zimako Chuks: We collected qualitative data to examine common themes in our participants. After editing interview transcripts and organizing participant data into the themes mentioned, we measured the prevalence of specific themes. We found that around 36% of student participants stated they ate healthier during the pandemic. The majority of students discussed how they ate primarily home cooked meals because of stay at home orders. Our findings were mixed when it came to eating frequencies during the pandemic: Some participants stated they skipped meals while others stated they ate more frequently. Less than 5% of participants stated that they had a decrease in food insecurity but the reasons for this are still unclear. Emma Yang: The research indicates that the food security of select students at George Mason was not significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is likely due to their overall financial stability and access to resources like grocery stores and food delivery. Due to campus closures, many students also moved home to live with their parents. This also affected students’ food security because students living at home likely did not have to worry about lack of access to food. These results build on existing evidence that students living off-campus and with their parents/guardians experienced no impact or an increase on their food security. However, in line with the research question, students’ self-perception of their well-being was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students reported that they were healthier during the pandemic due to eating more home-cooked meals, and that they were watching their weight by not consuming too much junk food. Alternatively, other students felt that their well-being declined due to less exercise and getting more food delivered. The generalizability of these results is limited by the fact that George Mason is located in an affluent metropolitan area near Washington D.C., where there are high living standards and average income. Zimako Chuks: It is pressing that further research explore the relationship between COVID 19 and food security in college students. This study faced a few limitations because it was a convenience sample. Because of this, certain subpopulations were overrepresented in the data, which could be one reason our results did not find as many participants that stated they had a change in food security, differing from the studies we read prior to the project. Zach Wolfson: In addition, participants may have not felt comfortable sharing some of the deeply personal information we asked for with little warning. Future efforts should attempt to do research over a long period of time, particularly as the new Delta variant of COVID-19 became more publicly prominent toward the end of this study. Allie Phillips: Additionally, two to four person focus groups could also be useful for gathering student insights on food security challenges. Further research on this topic would be extremely useful in developing nutrition intervention programs on campus. Emma Yang: Thank you for watching our presentation. If you have any questions, feel free to email one of us.

For more on this topic see:
Economic Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on GMU Students
COVID-19’s Impact on Under-Resourced/Underrepresented College Students and their Peers

4 replies on “COVID-19 Food Security Project”

I appreciate you going so in depth in your methods! You made a great presentation; it was very visually appealing. These results were not what I expected, but you explained it very well. Were you able to gather economic data (or other relevant background information) on the participants? You mentioned this, but I would also wonder if there was a general trend in the demographic of students interviewed. Would it be possible to make the responses more anonymous to account for participants hesitancy to reveal some information? This does seem like a topic that would be difficult to acquire without the interview method you used. Would you think of expanding your research? Like looking at different universities?

Impressive number of interviewees! You explained your limitations very well. I look forward to hearing more about this important topic of food security for college students during the pandemic.

Well done. You have a clear understanding of the limitations of your work and did a great job talking about why food insecurity studies are so complex. Creative video, too.

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