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Food Hardship: A Closer Look at Hunger

Food hardship, a similar but less nuanced term than food security, is a serious concern in several of the Children’s HealthWatch research sites.   Our hospitals generally serve low-income populations under great pressure to make ends meet, including the daily struggle to put food on the table. The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) analysis of food hardship data provide new insight into how widespread the problem is.   Below we have examined food hardship data from FRAC for each of our five Children’s HealthWatch sites and compared them to the prevalence of food insecurity and child food insecurity from our data[i]. 

 

Congressional District:

Site	Congressional District	Representative	Rate 2008-2009	Rank (out of 436 Districts)	Children’s HealthWatch; prevalence of food insecurity/child food insecurity
Philadelphia	2nd	Chaka Fattah	22.5	75	19.4% / 8.1%
	1st***	Robert Brady	36.1	2
Little Rock	2nd	Vic Snyder	20.5	125	17.5% / 5.4%
Boston	8th	Michael E. Capuano	20.3	130	26.5% / 10.7%
Minneapolis	5th	Keith Ellison	17.7	229	27.7% / 23.0%
Baltimore	7th	Elijah E. Cummings	23.7	58	15.9% / 6.1%

***The Hahnemann University hospital is very near a congressional district border, and while technically in the 2nd district, patients surely come from both districts.

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State Ranking:

State	Rate 2009	Rank
Arkansas	24.0	2
Massachusetts	16.3	34
Pennsylvania	15.9	36
Maryland	15.3	44
Minnesota	13.8	48

 

Arkansas’ very high rank in the state ratings of food hardship is worrying.  This finding parallels an analysis from Children’s HealthWatch that found a 107% increase in food insecurity at our Little Rock site from 2007 to 2008.

 

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Food Hardship in 2008-2009 by presence or absence of children under 18 years of age:

These data support the USDA’s consistent finding from its food insecurity data: households with children are at much greater risk of being unable to provide adequate food for all members of the household than households without children.  We also know from USDA and Children’s HealthWatch data that families at greatest risk are those with the youngest children. 

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