Association between early-pandemic food assistance use and subsequent food security trajectories among households in Washington State during the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND

Research on COVID-19's impact on food insecurity has primarily relied on cross-sectional data or long recall periods, with limited investigations into longitudinal patterns or the role of food assistance.

METHODS

We analyzed longitudinal data from 703 respondents participating in at least three Washington State Food Security Survey waves between June 18, 2020, and January 7, 2023. We assessed food security using the United States Department of Agriculture's six-item module, categorizing respondents' trajectories as persistently food secure, persistently food insecure, or experiencing one or more food insecurity transitions. We categorized food assistance use as never used, used before COVID-19 but not at baseline, did not use before COVID-19 but used at baseline, or always used. We descriptively examined sociodemographic factors linked to each food security trajectory and food assistance use pattern. We assessed associations between food assistance use and food security trajectories using modified Poisson regression.

RESULTS

We found that 20.2% of respondents were persistently food insecure, and 22.5% experienced one or more food insecurity transitions. Both patterns were more common among respondents who were aged 35 to 64, had a gender identity other than man or woman, were non-Hispanic Black, were single or divorced, had children, had some college education or less, reported $35,000 or less in household income, or were unemployed. In fully adjusted models, respondents who were newly using food assistance early in the COVID-19 pandemic had a higher probability of being persistently food insecure (marginal effect [ME] = 0.320, 95% CI = 0.204, 0.436) or experiencing one or more food insecurity transitions (ME = 0.216, 95% CI = 0.069, 0.363), than those who never used assistance.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight the importance of examining food security trajectories and food assistance use patterns and implementing policies that help households new to food assistance programs navigate these systems.