| Project: Explaining High Levels of Food Insecurity and Hunger in the Pacific Northwest |
| Award Year: 2002 |
| Amount of award, fiscal 2002: $29,975.00 |
| Institution: Oregon State University |
| Status: Completed |
| Detailed Objective: This project examines the effects of unemployment, employment seasonality, housing costs, and migration patterns on food insecurity and hunger in Oregon and Washington, where levels of food insecurity and hunger exceed the national average. The prevalence is unexpectedly high, considering the moderate poverty rates in this area. This project aims to explain these unexpectedly high rates of food access problems. It will employ a series of multilevel analyses, using data from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) and from the Oregon Population Survey (OPS), which includes a measure of food security. It will investigate the rates of food insecurity and hunger, their geographic distribution, and hypotheses as to their causes. In each analysis, the effects of household-level factors that are likely to affect food security (such as income, education, employment, and household structure) will be assessed and statistically controlled. Effects associated with rural/urban differences, differences among Metropolitan Statistical Areas, housing costs, employment seasonality, and in-migration will be considered. Based on these findings, multivariate logistic regression with State-level variables will be used to assess the extent to which interstate food insecurity differences can be explained by State-level differences in housing costs, rurality, business cyclicality, and in-migration. |
| Topic: Food Security |
| Dataset: Current Population Survey food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) |
Output:
Bernell, S., B. Weber, and M. Edwards. "Restricted Opportunities, Personal Choices, Ineffective Policies: What Explains Food Insecurity in Oregon," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Vol. 31, No. 2, August 2006.
Edwards, M., B. Weber, and S. Bernell. “Identifying Factors that Influence State-Specific Hunger Rates in the U.S.: A Simple Analytic Method for Understanding a Persistent Problem,” Social Indicators Research, Vol. 81, No. 3, May 2007. |