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Longitudinal Trajectories of Food Insecurity Among Children of Immigrants

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Abstract

Although research consistently points to higher rates of food insecurity (FI) among children of immigrants (COI), this is the first study to examine longitudinal trajectories of FI for this group. We used growth curve modeling and data from the 1998 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort to compare trajectories of FI for COI and children of U.S.-born parents. After controlling for socioeconomic status and participation in nutrition programs, first- and second-generation COI had significantly higher initial and ongoing rates of FI compared to children of U.S.-born parents. Additional analyses found that all differences between COI and children of U.S.-born parents occurred for families in poverty. We find that COI from poor families have higher rates of FI, with some differences among COI by immigrant generation. Policymakers may need to focus on avenues other than public assistance to reduce FI among COI living in poverty.

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Funding

This project was completed with no specific support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston University School of Social Work, 264 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Daniel P. Miller, Jina Chang, Yoonsook Ha & Linda Sprague Martinez

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  1. Daniel P. Miller
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  2. Jina Chang
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  3. Yoonsook Ha
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  4. Linda Sprague Martinez
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Correspondence to Daniel P. Miller.

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Conflict of Interest

This project was completed with no specific funding source. The authors report no financial disclosures or conflicts of interest. Because all analyses were conducted with de-identified secondary data with no means to link information to individual respondents, the present study was considered to be not human subjects research and required no review by an institutional review board.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4.

Table 4 The children’s food security scale
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Miller, D.P., Chang, J., Ha, Y. et al. Longitudinal Trajectories of Food Insecurity Among Children of Immigrants. J Immigrant Minority Health 20, 194–202 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0516-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0516-x

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