Changes in Food Acquisition Source, Behaviors, and Perceptions During Early Months of COVID-19 Pandemic: Differences Between Those Living in and Not Living in Low Income Low Food Access Urban Areas

ABSTRACT

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food access in US households located in low-income low-food access (LILA) zip codes and those in other areas. We explored changes in utilization of key food sources and in reported challenges, worries, and strategies related to obtaining food. Living in a LILA zip code was associated with a higher prevalence of using food programs, experiencing challenges finding help for food, worrying that food was unsafe, and worrying about losing access to food programs. Examining food acquisition during the pandemic may inform ways to reduce barriers to food access.

KEYWORDS:

• Food access
• COVID-19
• low-income low access
• food sources
• food strategies

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the executive team of the National Food Access and COVID Research Team (NFACT) for their support and continued commitment to collaboration and transparency related to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approvals

The data collection was approved by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Institutional Review Board (IRB No: 12359) and the Arizona State University Institutional Review Board (IRB No: STUDY00011927).

Data availability statement

The survey data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, JNRO, upon reasonable request. The geographic data that support the findings of this study are publicly available at US government websites. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain:

• 2015 USDA Food Access Research Atlas - https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/download-the-data/

• 4^th Quarter 2020 Zip-Tract Data file from HUD-USPS Zip Code Crosswalk Data - https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/usps_crosswalk.html#data

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a COVID-19 seed grant from Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions and by the university’s Investigator Research Funds; a Directed Research grant from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. The funding entities had no role in study design, analysis or writing of this publication.