Barriers to college student food access: a scoping review examining policies, systems, and the environment.

College student food insecurity (FI) is a public health concern. Programming and policies to support students have expanded but utilisation is often limited. The aim of this study was to summarise the barriers to accessing college FI programming guided by the social ecological model (SEM) framework. A scoping review of peer-reviewed literature included an electronic search conducted in MEDLINE, ERIC, and PubMed databases, with a secondary search in Google Scholar. Of the 138 articles identified, 18 articles met eligibility criteria and were included. Articles primarily encompassed (17/18) level barriers, followed by (15/18), (15/18), (9/18), and (6/18) levels. barriers included seven themes: . Four relationship barriers were identified: , , , and . Ten barrier themes comprised the organisational level: , , , , , , , , and . Two barrier themes were identified at the level, and , while one barrier theme, , encompassed the level. Higher education stakeholders should seek to overcome these barriers to the use of food programmes as a means to address the issue of college FI. This review offers recommendations to overcome these barriers at each SEM level.