Food Insecurity during COVID-19

Andrew Rundle, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

This project began as an agenda setting perspective paper submitted to the Journal of Urban Health and a blog posting at the Social and Spatial Epidemiology Unit blog. The paper is currently under review. The project is to understand the effects of COVID-19 induced food insecurity on child health and development. We have built an interactive mapping tool that displays data on SNAP benefits and food insecurity by State and county for the US. We are now integrating food insecurity survey question into ongoing child health studies. Dr. Eliza Kinsey is also working with CDC's NOPREN COVID-19 Food Insecurity Working Group to estimate how many meals are being missed by children due to COVID-19 related school closures.