Food Insecurity is Associated With Social Capital, Perceived Personal Disparity, and Partnership Status Among Older and Senior Adults in a Largely Rural Area of Central Texas

Abstract

This study examined the association of compositional measures of collective social functioning, composed of community and familial social capital and perceived personal disparity, with food security among older (aged 50–59 y) and senior (aged ≥ 60 y) adult residents of the largely rural Brazos Valley in Central Texas using data from the 2006 Brazos Valley Community Health Assessment (analytic N = 1059, 74% response rate). Among older adults and seniors, 18.6% reported food insecurity (5.5% often and 13.1% sometimes), defined as running out of food and not having money to buy more. Low community social capital was reported by 22.4% of participants, and 30.8% indicated they were single, widowed, or divorced, an indicator of limited familial social capital. A robust multinomial regression model found the odds of reporting greater food insecurity increased for individuals who were women, African American, residents of a household with a low or poverty-level income, individuals who perceived themselves to be worse off than others within their community, and those who had low social capital. The odds of being food insecure decreased for older respondents, partnered respondents and persons with more education (pseudo r² = 0.27, p < 0.0000). Compositional level measures of collective social functioning are important associates of food insecurity among older adults and seniors, regardless of severity.

KEYWORDS:

• collective social functioning
• community social capital
• familial social capital
• food insecurity
• marital or partnership status
• older adults
• perceived inequality
• rural

Acknowledgments

This research was supported with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (#5P20MD002295) and by Cooperative Agreement #1U48DP001924 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Prevention Research Centers Program through Core Research Project and Special Interest Project Texas Healthy Aging Research Network. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH and CDC. We also wish to thank Dr. Paul Lewandowski and Dr. Rola A. El-Husseini for their helpful comments on drafts of this article.

Notes

^B indicates statistically significant after Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons p < 0.006. *significant at p ≤ 0.05. †significant at p ≤ 0.010. ‡significant at p ≤ 0.001.

^ϕCramer's V for cross tabulation scores ≥0.2 indicates a strong association.

^a p values are from one-way ANOVA f-test for food-security category differences.

^b p value results from cross tabulations are Pearson χ².

^c Poverty household income ≤100% Federal Poverty Level.

^d Low household income = 101 to 199% Federal Poverty Level.

^e Medium/high household income ≥200% Federal Poverty Level.

^B indicates statistically significant after Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons p < 0.006, *significant at p ≤ 0.05. †significant at p ≤ 0.010. ‡significant at p ≤ 0.001.

^ϕCramer's V for cross tabulation scores ≥0.2 indicates a strong association.

^a p value results from cross tabulations are Pearson χ².

^b p values are from one-way ANOVA f-test for food-security category differences.

^c Widowed, divorced, and single = 0; married or living with partner = 1.

^d Compared to other people in my community, I think I am: 1 = Much better off; 2 = A little better; 3 = About the same; 4 = A little worse off; 5 = A lot worse off.

Significance level: *significant at p ≤ 0.05. †significant at p ≤ 0.010. ‡significant at p ≤ 0.001.

^a Referent category is never reported food insecurity.

^b Referent category is older adult.

^c Referent category is male.

^d Referent category is non-Hispanic White.

^e Referent category for income variables is ≥200% Federal Poverty Level.

^f Referent category is combined medium and high social capital.

^g Referent category is combined widowed, divorced, and single status.