Drivers of food insecurity disparities in California: a closer look by immigration status and ethnicity

By Alein Y. Haro

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Background

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity increased, particularly among people facing job loss or new economic stressors associated with the pandemic’s economic fallout. Simultaneously, some groups already experienced economic instability even before the pandemic. For example, immigrants have been overrepresented in low-wage jobs where it is difficult to take time off, and were more likely to live in poverty than those born in the US. Further, policies like public charge also may have played a role in whether immigrants decide to access food benefits that they or their children are eligible for.

Taken together, a lack of social and financial resources to weather the economic shock to a household’s budget can lead to the inability to meet the nutritional needs of household members–or, food insecurity. In turn, food insecurity can influence adults’ health outcomes. For example, food-insecure adults are more likely to experience depression, heart disease, and diabetes.

Objectives

Given pre-existing socioeconomic disparities and the importance of food insecurity for health, my colleague, Adrian M. Bacong, and I sought to determine whether Asian and Latinx immigrants in California were at a greater risk of experiencing food insecurity than their US-born White counterparts in 2020. And if so, what was the driver of food insecurity among these groups — job loss or decreased hours due to the pandemic or pre-existing socioeconomic factors, like educational attainment and pre-pandemic income?

Findings

Based on our analyses, we found three key results.

1. While 10.4% of Californians experienced food insecurity, there were significant differences in who was at risk. For instance, non-citizen Latinxs reported the highest levels of food insecurity (23.5%), and US-born Asians reported the lowest (4.4%). Further, 4.9% of Whites, 14.9% of US-born Latinx, and 13.5% of non-citizen Asians were food insecure.
2. Even after accounting for demographic, pre-pandemic socioeconomic factors, and household factors, disparities in food insecurity remained. US-born, naturalized, and non-citizen Latinxs and non-citizen Asians had a higher probability of being food insecure than US-born Whites. Naturalized and US-born Asians had the lowest probability of being food insecure.
3. For Latinx individuals of all immigration statuses, pre-pandemic socioeconomic factors explained between 44% to 67% of disparities in food insecurity and 35% of disparities among non-citizen Asians. COVID-19-related job loss and reduced wages only explained 11.5% of food insecurity among non-citizen Latinxs.

Conclusion

Pre-pandemic differences in socioeconomic factors, like income and education, played a persistent role in food insecurity for Latinxs of all immigration statuses and non-citizen Asians. For non-citizen Latinxs, in particular, the additional burden of COVID-19 job loss and decreased wages also shaped their risk of food insecurity. Of all groups, Asian and Latinx non-citizens were more likely to be food insecure, suggesting that the broader anti-immigrant climate, public charge fears, and immigration-based eligibility restrictions for COVID-19 relief may be driving food insecurity. This finding also indicates that immigration status is a fundamental determinant of food insecurity above and beyond ethnicity. Finally, regardless of immigration status, Latinxs were more likely to be food insecure than their naturalized and US-born Asian counterparts and US-born Whites. Structural racism, in the form of differential access to opportunities and risks, may be driving this relationship for Latinxs.

Overall, the groups most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to experience the worst outcomes during future social shocks. Therefore, significant policy changes can help alleviate disparities in food insecurity

Recommendations

1. An upstream approach to address disparities in food insecurity among non-citizens includes a path to citizenship, which indirectly helps increase access to quality employment and educational opportunities.
2. To prevent the widening disparities in food insecurity, local, state, and federal levels of government have the legal power to include non-citizens in the social safety net, as was done before the 1970s when immigration status was not an eligibility criterion for public assistance.
3. Federal and state governments can continue to bolster the social safety net (i.e., Pandemic-EBT, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) to support non-citizens and marginalized groups even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

Article citation:

Haro-Ramos, A.Y., Bacong, A.M., 2022. Prevalence and risk factors of food insecurity among Californians during the COVID-19 pandemic: Disparities by immigration status and ethnicity. Preventive Medicine 164, 107268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107268

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