By Sydney Erickson, JHBL Staffer
The coronavirus pandemic has caused a devastating blow to societal normalcy and has resulted in massive loss related to both life and economic security. Individuals have not only been forced into social isolation but have also suffered from job loss and ongoing financial instability. However, gathered statistics suggest not everyone has experienced these consequences equally, particularly when it comes to food insecurity.
Food insecurity is defined as being “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”[1] Prior to the pandemic, Massachusetts’s high cost of living disproportionately affected families of color, making it difficult for those effected to find housing and to pay for necessities such as food and healthcare.[2] Nevertheless, in 2019, only about 8% of adults living in Massachusetts identified as being “food insecure.”[3] Concerningly, following the coronavirus outbreak, food insecurity substantially increased by 55%. Additionally, a survey, which gathered data between October 2020 and January 2021, approximates 1.6 million, or 30% of adults, were experiencing food insecurity.[4] In comparison to other states nationwide, Massachusetts has a lower rate of food insecurity. Yet, throughout the state, certain communities have suffered much greater harm, which was only exasperated by the COVID crisis.
Black and Latinx communities have always experienced food insecurity at a much higher rate than White and Asian communities and this percentage unsurprisingly increased exponentially due to COVID. Statistics have shown that before the pandemic, 44% of Latinx and 31% of Black adults living in Massachusetts suffered from food insecurity.[5] During the pandemic, these percentages rose to 58% for Latinx adults and 45% for Black adults.[6] In comparison to White and Asian communities, these numbers are significantly disproportionate. Prior to the pandemic, only 16% of Asian adults and 15% of White adults suffered from food insecurity, and during the pandemic these statistics only rose to 26% for Asian adults and 24% for White adults.[7]
Furthermore, in Massachusetts, Black and Latinx families have relatively low median wages in comparison to the high cost of living and rent prices in the state, contributing to this issue. Due to this disparity, a likely factor that contributes to these high rates of food insecurity among minority communities is the existence of “food deserts” and “food swamps.” Food deserts are defined as “tracts of populated land in which people have limited access to a variety of healthy foods,” while food swamps are defined as “areas with an overabundance and easy access to unhealthy, innutritious foods and products, in addition to a limited availability of a variety of health, nutritious foods.”[8] In 2019, the Massachusetts Food Trust Program found that more than 80% of Boston’s population lived in food deserts, and it is reasonable to assume that the effects of COVID made access to healthy foods even more difficult, especially in minority communities.[9] By making access to food more complicated for specific individuals, food swamps and food deserts are direct causes of increased food insecurity.
It has been determined that “the levels of an area’s food insecurity and likelihood of existing without, or containing, a food swamp is derived from an intersectional array of factors.”[10] These factors include economic status, race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, location, and employment. However, it has been shown that economic status is the easiest factor to track and that it holds the most direct relationship to food insecurity.[11] For this reason, national trends in poverty and food insecurity essentially mirror one another. To effectively address the issue of food insecurity, both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Federal Government need to create an intricate and detailed solution to address the short-term and long-term needs of these communities.
In the Mayor’s Food Access Agenda for 2021-2023, the city of Boston outlined its strategic approach for resolving food insecurity by 2030. The agenda listed six goals to achieve an end to food insecurity and the disparate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These goals include: (1) ensuring that food access issues are prioritized within community organizations, (2) strengthening the citywide food access network by developing shared resources, (3) developing and supporting a policy and advocacy agenda to eliminate food insecurity, (4) building public awareness of food insecurity and available resources, (5) implementing strategies to make healthy, fresh, and culturally connected foods more affordable and accessible, and (6) responding to the immediate food needs of Boston residents during COVID-19.[12] Whether these policy initiatives will be effective in ending food insecurity and rectifying the adverse effects that the coronavirus pandemic has had on minority communities within Boston, and Massachusetts as a whole, is currently unknown, but the city is taking a major step in the right direction. Unfortunately, as the Gaps in Food Access Report from May 2021 stated, “without continued and expanded policies to alleviate poverty, the hunger crisis will continue to plague those most disadvantaged during the economic recovery” from the pandemic.[13]
Sydney Erickson is a second-year law student at Suffolk University Law School and a staff member for the Journal of Heath and Biomedical Law. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2020 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Psychology. In addition to her interest in health and biomedical law, Sydney is passionate about litigation and public interest work.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHBL or Suffolk University Law School.
Sources
[1] See Asad Khimani, Food Insecurity: It’s Only the Surface of a Sea of Inequality, Great Blue Hill (Jan. 21, 2021), https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2021/01/21/food-insecurity-its-only-the-surface-of-a-sea-of-inequality.
[2] See Trevor Mattos, Food Insecurity Has Doubled During the Pandemic: Data, Insights and Policy Solutions, Boston Indicators (Oct. 6, 2020), https://www.bostonindicators.org/reports/report-website-pages/covid_indicators-x2/2020/october/food-insecurity.
[3] Id.
[4] See Greater Boston Food Bank, Gaps in Food Access During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Massachusetts (May 2021), https://www.gbfb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GBFB_Gaps_in_Food_Access_Report_Final_May_2021.pdf.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] See Anthony dos Santos, Food Insecurity in Boston (April 4, 2021), https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7f87a44bf31140dda33c9c00224c3aca.
[9] See Karen Hensel, Limited Access to Healthy Food Impacts Certain Neighborhoods, NBC Boston (Feb. 21, 2019, 9:49 AM), https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/your-neighborhood-could-be-harming-your-health-2/3611/.
[10] Santos, supra note 8.
[11] Id.
[12] See City of Boston, Mayor’s Food Access Agenda 2021-2023, City of Boston Food Access, https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2021/04/Mayor%27s%20Food%20Access%20Agenda%202021-2023.pdf.
[13] Greater Boston Food Bank, supra note 3.
Maria Nicola et al., The Socio-economic Implications of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19): A Review, National Center for Biotechnology Information (April 17, 2020), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7162753/.