Data are limited on the use of food pantries and emergency soup kitchens over time, which has hampered efforts to estimate the pattern of change in the system. Studies have relied on the use of cross-sectional recall data on existing providers to estimate changes over time in the system. The overall objective of this project is to estimate the degree of bias introduced by using cross-sectional data to estimate trends in the demand for emergency food. The project uses a unique panel dataset on information from emergency food providers in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Specific objectives are:

1. Describe the characteristics of emergency food providers in 2000, to compare to previous findings from the nationwide Emergency Food Assistance System Provider Survey.
2. Estimate the bias in estimates of the change in the demand for emergency food assistance that arise from using cross-sectional data.

The project uses data from the MAAC database, which provides detailed information on emergency food providers in the Kansas City, MO metropolitan area. The project has identified 152 agencies that provided emergency food assistance from March 1997 to March 2000, and is currently collecting information on their status and characteristics as of March 2000. This information will be compared to previous findings from the national Emergency Food Assistance System Provider Survey, and will be used to estimate the number of provider exits from the system over this 3-year period.