Addressing Food Insecurity through a Health Equity Lens: a Case Study of Large Urban School Districts during the COVID-1
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Addressing Food Insecurity through a Health Equity Lens: a Case Study of Large Urban School Districts during the COVID-19 Pandemic Gabriella M. McLoughlin & Julia A. McCarthy & Jared T. McGuirt & Chelsea R. Singleton & Caroline G. Dunn & Preety Gadhoke
# The New York Academy of Medicine 2020
Abstract Reduced access to school meals during public health emergencies can accelerate food insecurity and nutritional status, particularly for low-income children in urban areas. To prevent the exacerbation of health disparities, there is a need to understand the implementation of meal distribution among large urban school districts during emergencies and to what degree these strategies provide equitable meal access. Our case study of four large urban school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic aims to address these knowledge gaps. Guided by the Getting to Equity (GTE) framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study evaluating emergency meal distribution and strategy implementation in four large urban school districts (Chicago Public Schools, Houston Independent School District, Los Angeles Unified
School District, and New York City Department of Education). We gathered data from school district websites on (1) meal service and delivery sites and (2) district documents, policies, communication, and resources. Using qualitative coding approaches, we identified unique and shared district strategies to address meal distribution and communications during the pandemic according to the four components of the GTE framework: increase healthy options, reduce deterrents, build on community capacity, and increase social and economic resources. We matched district census tract boundaries to demographic data from the 2018 American Community Survey and United States Department of Agriculture food desert data, and used geographic information systems (GIS) software to identify meal site locations
G. M. McLoughlin Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control and Prevention Research Center, Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
C. R. Singleton Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 Fourth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
G. M. McLoughlin (*) Department of Surgery (Division of Public Health Sciences), Washington University School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA e-mail: [email protected]
C. G. Dunn Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
J. A. McCarthy Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, Box 137, New York, NY 10027, USA J. T. McGuirt Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina Greensboro, 319 College Avenue, 318 Stone Building, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA
P. Gadhoke Department of Pharmacy Administration & Public Health, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, St. John’s University, 175-05 Horace Har
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