“We’re all one bad day away”: Impacts on Food Access in Buffalo, New York during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

When COVID-19 arrived in Buffalo, New York in March 2020, there was already significant food insecurity in the region. However, barriers to food access were greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. This study assesses the pandemic’s impact on food access in Buffalo through 75 surveys and 30 qualitative interviews conducted with users of food pantries. Results show that, while the pandemic did contribute to food insecurity, many food pantry users were already experiencing chronic food access issues. Specifically, issues related to transportation, stigma, and chronic poverty must be addressed for food insecure households to better endure emergency events like pandemics.

KEYWORDS:

• Keywords food insecurity
• food pantry
• food charity
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Partial funding for this research was provided by the Center for the Advancement of Food Security and Healthy Communities at the University of South Florida.