The National Food Access and COVID research Team (NFACT) is a collaboration of researchers at 18 sites across 15 states exploring the impact of COVID-19 on food access, food security and food systems. This is the inaugural issue of a newsletter that will offer the NFACT community updates on our ongoing research, recent publications, news, and the opporunity to get to know our teams better.

Welcome to the NFACT community!

Letter from the Director 

Dear NFACT Community,

  Nearly a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves continuing to experience the revolving challenges of the pandemic and its associated challenges.  Yet, time has given us many opportunities to learn about the pivots and policies that have helped safeguard food security in the U.S.  As our team turns from conducting research to respond to the immediate pandemic to consider the longer-term implications and resilience strategies, we are launching this NFACT newsletter as a way to share results, challenges and news amongst the community.  In this edition, NFACT research highlights the ways that certain programs were affected by and responded to the pandemic, and its relative impact on food insecure households.  For example, national-level data highlights the drop in SNAP participation, especially among low-income households at the onset of the pandemic, while a recent New York State publication identified the desire for increased benefits among food insecure households. A recent Vermont publication demonstrated that food bank and pantry use helped low-income food insecure households maintain fruit and vegetable consumption during the first six months of the pandemic.  These results can continue to inform policy and pandemic responses, while also providing the data to prevent future food insecurity shocks.  Please be in touch with NFACT to learn more about our ongoing efforts, including many additional planned surveys to continue to assess the changing food security landscape.

Meredith Niles, PhD

NFACT Director

Associate Professor

University of Vermont

New Policy Briefs and Publications

Full NFACT Team

The preprint for a joint manuscript that all 18 NFACT sites contributed to is now available on MedRxiv. A Multi-Site Analysis of the Prevalence of Food Security in the United States, before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic  explores the results of studies from 18 sites across 15 different states over the course of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

National 

A new brief: Food insecurity and food assistance program participation in the U.S.: One year into the COVID-19 pandemic in August, which found that food insecurity was almost three times higher for households in their sample that had experienced a job disruption since March 2020 compared with households that had no job disruptions. 

A new publication in Preventative Medicine Reports, SNAP participation among low-income US households stays stagnant while food insecurity escalates in the months following the COVID-19 pandemic, which found while food insecurity rates increased during the first four months of the pandemic, SNAP participation remained at pre-pandemic levels and participation among low-income households actually declined. 

New York State

A new publication, Food-Seeking Behaviors and Food Insecurity Risk During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic, in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, found that food insecurity was associated with a lack of knowledge about where to find help for food, essential workers, college students, and a desire for increased program benefits.  

A new publication, Food Access Worries, Food Assistance Use, Purchasing Behavior, and Food Insecurity Among New Yorkers During COVID-19, in Frontiers in Nutrition that found higher food worries and SNAP participation, among other factors, were associated with experiencing food insecurity.   

Vermont 

A new brief, Food Security Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Following a Group of Vermonters During the First Year, found that food insecurity rose at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained higher than normal a year later, though participation in food assistance programs decreased during the same time frame. Additionally, more than half of reported food insecurity began following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a majority of reported food insecurity was persistent through March 2021. 

A new publication, The Food Bank and Food Pantries Help Food Insecure Participants Maintain Fruit and Vegetable Intake During COVID-19 in Frontiers in Nutrition, which found that food pantry use supported fruit and vegetable consumption among food insecure households during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Researcher Spotlight

What is your research focus?

I study the economic, social, and environmental influences on food choice and impacts of food programs and policy on diet quality and diet-related disease. Aside from my COVID-related work, I am working on grocery store interventions aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable purchasing and consumption among shoppers and food assistance recipients and food and housing security among college students.

What have you found most surprising about your NFACT research?

Although our study employed convenience sampling and ended up with respondents that were more likely to identify as white, were higher income, and more highly educated compared to the population, we found that 30% of our respondents were food insecure. This may have something to do with the fact that it was an extremely stressful and uncertain time for everyone, and I will be working with NFACT collaborators to think more about this in future work.

What will you be working on next?

I am currently writing up results for a few papers from our original survey and we are in the process of collecting data from a second round. In this second round, we mailed out surveys to a randomly selected sample of New Mexico residents. I am also starting work on a USDA grant with NFACT collaborators to use survey data from various states and the national survey to develop and validate a disaster-specific food insecurity measure. I am very excited to get started and look forward to sharing our findings with the NFACT community.

Fun Fact

When I wasn’t busy working on COVID-related research and other projects during 2020, I was busy planning my first ever backpacking trip. I ended up taking a few trips in the Gila National Forest and seeing so many beautiful places in New Mexico that I’d never taken the time to see.

What's Next? 

Have an update or idea for the newsletter?

Want to suggest a student or researcher to highlight?

Contact Mattie: malpaugh@uvm.edu

Want to contact NFACT or get involved?

Contact Meredith: mtniles@uvm.edu