Webinar: What We Lose as USDA Household Food Security Reporting Ends

Overview

On November, 20, 2025, Duke's World Food Policy Center hosted an in-depth webinar on a major policy shift by the US Department of Agriculture: the discontinuation of the US Household Food Security report. For nearly 30 years, this report has been crucial in measuring food insecurity among US households. This session features industry experts Emily Englehard from Feeding America, Lauren Fiechtner from Mass General Brigham for Children, and Parke Wilde from Tufts University. They discuss the implications of this change, alternative data sources, and the future of food security measurement in America. Learn how this shift impacts data-driven decision-making in policy, research, and community practices, and what steps can be taken to ensure continuity in understanding food insecurity. Norbert Wilson, World Food Policy Center Director and Professor of Public Policy, moderated the webinar.

Four key takeaways:

1. Increased Dependency on Collaboration: In the absence of a singular national reporting source, collaboration among NGOs, research institutions, and local governments becomes paramount to accurately measure and address food insecurity.
2. Potential for State-focused Data Collection: Organizations like the Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts show the potential for state/local data collection that could supplement federal data sources.
3. Risk of Inconsistent and Incompatible Data: With multiple entities potentially providing differing insights, the lack of uniform and cross-comparable data could lead to inconsistencies that may complicate policy and program decisions on a national scale.
4. Hope for Restoration and Innovation: There remains optimism that, recognizing the gap created by discontinuation of national household food security reporting, there will be new efforts to restore or replace national data collection guided by both historical precedent and modern initiatives.

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Transcript

Norbert Wilson, Director of the Duke World Food Policy Center

Welcome. My name is Norbert Wilson. I'm a faculty member at Duke University in the Sanford School of Public Policy where I am the Director of the World Food Policy Center. I'm also a faculty member in the Duke Divinity School. Thank you for joining us today.

Our webinar concerns a policy change with significant implications for how we understand and respond to hunger in America. I am sure you are aware the US Department of Agriculture announced on September 20th that it will no longer produce the US Household Food Security report, which for nearly 30 years has provided the most comprehensive and consistent measure of food insecurity among US households.

This report has been a foundational tool for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and the charitable food sector, informing federal nutrition assistance programs shaping funding priorities and guiding interventions across charitable and public sectors. The discontinuation of this reporting raises important questions about the future of national food security measurement.

While some related data may remain available through other federal surveys, the absence of a regularly published, accessible national analysis poses challenges for transparency, comparability, and the ability to monitor trends over time. The US Household Food Security survey has long been a meaningful part of public debate in shaping how we understand food insecurity.

The loss of this tool comes at a critical moment as policy makers, advocates, and program administrators work to address persistent inequalities in food access and to strengthen the social safety net. Today's discussion examines the implications of this change from multiple perspectives, policy, research, and community practice. We consider what this shift means for data-driven decision making, how alternative data sources might fill the gap, and what steps can be taken to ensure continuity and how we measure and understand food insecurity in the United States.

I want to pause and show my great appreciation to our colleagues who have generated this report over the years you have and continue to be important public servants, and we appreciate your work. Thank you.

Panelist Introductions

Emily Englehard: I'm the Vice President of Research at Feeding America, which is the largest hunger relief organization in the US. Part of a network of more than 200 food banks, 22 statewide food bank associations, and over 60,000 agency partners, food pantries, and meal programs. My research is focused on understanding food insecurity in the US, how we measure it, what drives it, what are the consequences, as well as looking at federal nutrition programs and the charitable food system and how those interventions can help improve wellbeing and other social determinants of health.

Lauren Fiechtner: I am the Director of Nutrition at Mass General Brigham for Children. I'm a pediatric gastroenterologist. And then I'm also have the pleasure of being the senior health and research advisor at the Greater Boston Food Bank, which is a member of Feeding America. And we serve over 600,000 people each month through our 600 food pantries and 190 towns in Eastern Massachusetts. And I've been leading a statewide survey on food insecurity for the past six years for that organization.

Parke Wilde: I'm a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, where I do research on the economics of federal nutrition assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, and the WIC program for Women, Infants and Children. And I'm author of a textbook on food policy in the United States.

Panel Questions and Discussion

Norbert: The household food security data but also the report have been a part of our common language for discussing food insecurity for decades. Each of you have used the household food security survey or its findings for research, practice or advocacy, and you have observed its influence in shaping policy and decision making. Let's hear more about your experience and exposure to these data and the reports. So Emily, let's begin with you. Can you talk about how Feeding America operationalizes the data from USDA?

Emily: Yes. So I'm happy to talk about it. And the primary way that we utilize these data is through our research study called MAP the Meal Gap. And so this is a study that estimates food insecurity at the local level. About 15 years ago, sitting in a meeting with our technical advisory group at Feeding America, including Craig Gunderson who is now at Baylor and Elaine Waxman at the Urban Institute, trying to figure out a way to get at the need for food at the local level. So, historically, we had been using poverty as a proxy for food insecurity, which is imperfect. I think 2023 USDA report showed that two thirds of people living in food insecure households are actually above the poverty level. We wanted to try and figure out a way that we could support our food bank network and others in understanding the need for food specifically at the local level. So, we partnered with other researchers and stakeholders and created the estimates that we have today.

We use the Current Population Survey (CPS) Food Security Supplement as well as American Community Survey (ACS) data and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data as well. And when we did launch in 2011, we had also provided estimates of child food insecurity at the county level and food insecurity by income band so that we could understand what percent of people living in food insecure households are eligible for different federal programs like SNAP or others. And which are ineligible. And that can be really where the food bank network can step in. And then over time we expand that to include food insecurity by race and ethnicity, other age groups, and even more granular geographies, zip codes, census track, etc. With the goal of really trying to understand inequities and to make sure that our food bank network and others had consistent and reliable information around the need for food at a level where it could be really actionable. And also, you know, it's been really powerful to see how this has evolved. It grew from a very technical tool into something that shows up in almost every part of our work. Our food banks use it to layer their service data so that they can identify gaps where the need might be high and maybe the response isn't high enough. Our fundraisers use it to help donors understand need. Our communications and media work, and also our policy and advocacy efforts are really rooted in that effort.

Norbert: The Map the Meal Gap, which I will say I've used so many times and I really appreciate that data source, is based on the data that USDA has been collecting over the years. I'm interested to know if Feeding America uses those data for other purposes beyond the Map the Meal Gap, and how does that play out for you all?

Emily: Yes. I think at the national level, the food insecurity data it lets us track trends over time and really highlight the experience of households and children. And how programs and different interventions can influence food insecurity and family stability. So, you know, I think looking even at the trend over the past 15 years, I mean, we saw food insecurity decline from 2011 to 2019, and then it rose in 2020 due to the pandemic. But not as high as we thought once we saw such a strong intervention at the federal and charitable level. And then it fell, and then we saw in 2022 it go back up because of the staggering food price inflation and the sunset of different programs that had been around during the pandemic. So, it really helps us understand how these sort of broader systemic interventions have an impact on people who are experiencing food insecurity.

Norbert: I want to now turn to Lauren and ask about your experience as a clinician. You're a pediatrician, so as you are hearing these data how does this influence the way you think about your practice as a pediatrician? But also what do these data do in this report as someone who's contributing as a health advisor for the Greater Boston Food Bank?

Lauren: Yes, so as a clinician, I think the USDA [report] highlights the important need of screening for food insecurity and also those who are inequitably experiencing food insecurity. And for us to really adapt our medical recommendations and services to these populations. I think it garnered support for, you know, supporting Medicaid 1115 waivers, which are food as medicine interventions for people with chronic illnesses who also have food insecurity. And so our state has really expanded that work. And I think those levels and that report highlights to our policy makers that food insecurity is a driver of chronic medical conditions and poor nutrition. And the only way to really improve that is to improve food access and economic mobility at the heart of that. And then from the food bank side, we use the Map the Meal Gap as Emily so eloquently put together this very complicated permutation of the data. But that we actually invest in million dollars in our community partners and we look at the Map the Meal Gap to see where are we not investing resources in order to get food out to those who are inequitably experiencing food insecurity. And so that really allows us to give them money for staff and infrastructure and refrigeration. So, I think a lot of people think the cans of food is what is going to drive us to serve more folks, but it's actually probably our staff and our infrastructure that will allow us to get enormous amounts of food out in the system. And so, that's how we use Map the Meal Gap.

Norbert: This is wonderful. It's really critical to understand how food banks are using the data that is processed by Feeding America that come from USDA to actually optimize the good efforts that people try to do and feeding their neighbors. I'd be interested to know or hear if you have any comments on national or state level policies or data that may affect your clinical practice. And how does that help us think about disparities in patient populations?

Lauren: Yes, so actually we mimicked our statewide survey data on the USDA report. We really took that 18-item food insecurity screener and took it very seriously. That this was the gold standard and that was what we are going to measure. The state has invested significant money into the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program. About $50 million or so that gives us food to distribute across the state. And 51% of that actually goes to local farmers where we don't have a huge growing season in Boston, so we can grow food within the state of Massachusetts. We do. But that report and the increased need has allowed us to ensure that food budget is increased at the state level. We've shown that actually in this data, dietary quality among those with food insecurity or accessing our food pantries has gone up significantly. We also have nutritionists who help purchase our food and choose with our food acquisition team what is culturally relevant and high dietary quality. And so we see really nutritious food getting out in this system. And I think when we can put those foods and the resources and refrigeration in the communities that need us the most, that's a really powerful way of doing this. And the USDA allows us to get to the census track, which has been important for us to really know exactly where we should target our resources. It's also allowed us to track universal school meals, which is permanent in Massachusetts, and the impact that's had on child level food insecurity. So, in many ways it's been critically important to use this data.

USDA Food Security in the US Survey Tools

18 item US household food security survey module
10 item US adult food security survey module
6 item short form of the food security survey module
Self-administered food security survey module for youth ages 12 and older
Spanish translation of the US household food security survey module
Chinese translation of the US household food security survey module
CPS food security supplements

Norbert: Parke, I'm going to turn attention to you and think about the research community frequently at universities. And I would like for you to talk to us a little bit about how you use the data. Or how the data from the food security survey is used. And I know you're an economist, but you're also in the Friedman School of Nutrition. So you're at this really fascinating intersection. Tell us about the work that you and others have done in this space.

Parke: It's a very important question. Food economists like myself, but also nutrition scientists, use the results from the household food security survey very often themselves. But as a person who studies food policy, I've also been paying attention for many years into how the federal government uses these measures. For the federal government, this is a critical thing of national importance. The federal government uses it to understand how well are we doing as a society. You know, through history, any society and any government gets judged in part according to how well it protects the food security of the people who live there. It also helps the government understand trends over time, progress towards very important national goals. At the end of the 1990s, the federal government and countries around the world all set goals for how much they were going to reduce food insecurity rates in the different countries. Cut it by half. At the time, the rate of food insecurity in the US was about 12%, and they wanted to cut it to 6%. And so measuring progress toward a goal like that requires nationally representative data. But the third thing is the government uses this to understand how effective are the federal government programs, things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provide resources to low income households. And this is important for everybody who cares about low income households, but it's also important for anybody who cares about how well taxpayer money is spent. If you want it rigorously evaluated - how much good is this hundred billion dollars a year that the federal government spends on the SNAP program? You really need to see outcome data just like this. It's not really a liberal or a conservative thing. It's actually part of good governance.

Norbert: Thank you Parke. And I know that there's been a great deal of research that has looked at the relationship between the SNAP program and food insecurity. And there is a clear causal reduction or link between the exposure to SNAP and reducing food insecurity. So these data have been used to actually show the effectiveness of that program. I'd like to hear a little bit about the work that you've done and how you've used this annual report. And I know both as a researcher and as an instructor, it's been a valuable source of information for you.

Parke: We've studied things like what is the impact of the SNAP program on rates of household food insecurity. Also, you know, there's interesting measurement questions in this. These food security survey questions ask about experiences that households have. Did you worry about not having enough food? Did the food not last? Did you have trouble getting balanced meals? Each of these predicated on the reason being because of not having enough household resources. So with my colleague Irma Arteaga at the University of Missouri, in recent years we've been studying how do people answer these questions differently when they participate in a program like SNAP or when they don't.

Norbert: One more question on this area because you said something about the way various nations have been trying to cut food insecurity by half. I would like to know, could you speak a little bit more on how other developed nations measure and report food security?

Parke: All of the other rich countries of the world have some type of household food security measure. But Norbert it's not just the rich countries. The UN agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization, use something called the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which owes a lot of intellectual debts to the US measure. This type of survey based measure was a substantial innovation in the United States. It's been adopted in countries around the world. And so, if this end of the survey sort of sticks with us, I'm going to feel a little left out as we read how other countries are doing in terms of their national progress.

Norbert: Thank you. Let's shift gears a little. USDA has stated that the household food security survey report is being discontinued because similar data are available in other national surveys. It is true that other data sources include some of the household food insecurity survey questions. For many of us, the USDA report actually made the complex task of understanding food insecurity in the US much easier, much more accessible. Let's explore how accessible and usable these other data sets are to understand food insecurity. So Parke, I'm going to go back to you to talk to about some of the other data sources that provide food security measures. What do they do and maybe what don't they do? And I'm also interested in understanding how these sources offer equivalent insights into household food insecurity or are they capturing something different?

Food Research & Action Center – Threats to Food Security Data: Why the ‘Redundancy’ Claim Doesn’t Hold Up

Parke: Norbert, as your question indicates, sometimes there are questions about either food security or food sufficiency on a survey, but it might be a different question, not quite comparable. I think about how valuable the Household Pulse Survey or HPS was during the early years of the COVID Pandemic, just as we were trying to make sure that the whole food economy wasn't going to seize up. You know, this was a substantial concern. Essentially a national crisis. But that survey doesn't use the household food security instrument that we have on the current population survey. It used a very simple question with an older USDA history asking, essentially, do you sometimes or often not have enough food? A very straightforward survey question. It is true that other surveys, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), or the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), have the full set of food security questions, at least in some years. But the issue there isn't really about the question, it's about the sampling. There is nothing like the current population survey. The Current Population Survey (CPS) is what we rely on for the unemployment rate or for the poverty rate. You can't have a major statistic that has national, federal government importance come from a smaller sample of just 5,000 households a year with eccentric geographic locations such as the NHANES, the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey. It really feels very important to have this large sample of 50,000 households yearly. Collected systematically and in a way that scientifically takes great care to make sure that it's not self-selected, but that it represents the full breadth of people in the United States.

Other datasets with SOME food security survey information:

Norbert: Parke, thank you so much for that. Having worked with a couple of other data sets when they were actually created to do a separate set of things, it's important to understand that the intent and the goal of those other surveys don't necessarily match up with what we can do with the current population survey which is used by USDA to estimate food security prevalence.

Norbert: Emily, let's go to you. I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on how Feeding America uses other data sources and why or how are those other data sources useful for the work that Feeding America does?

Emily: Yes, we do use a wide range of data sources. As mentioned, the CPS Food Security Supplement has been really, critical as an underpinning to a lot of our work. But we've invested, for example, in the Urban Institute's Wellbeing and Basic Needs Survey, or WBNS. And we've done so for several years, in particular to support our estimates of charitable food assistance participation. So we've used those data in combination with CPS data to arrive at our estimate: 2023, we served over 50 million people over the course of the year. These are really important data points and I was reflecting on this. You know, we developed a two item charitable food participation module that just last year was placed on the (CPS) Food Security Supplement. So we'll, we'll have a single year to sort of reference there. I think the good news though is that the WBNS is now, starting in 2025, going to be representative of the full population. Not just households with working age adults. It includes the six item food security module. So we are still going to be able to look at food insecurity and how it co-occurs with other important social determinants of health.

Of course, I think the trending piece is going to be a challenge as it would be for any of these surveys, but that's something that we're going to be leaning into given the cancellation. We also go beyond surveys. So we've had a long-term partnership with NIQ, which was formerly Nielsen, to look at meal cost variation data. And that's been really powerful because, you know, we have a sense of what meal costs look like at the national level but it can be really, really eye-opening to see how that variation occurs across communities. And we're very, very thankful for that partnership.

I'd say just the third piece is what Lauren was digging into, which is that the food bank network itself is a tremendous data and engine. That's not going to get us at these national data. However, there is a lot of power that can continue to exist in these local areas. Many are partnering with universities. Some few have their own incredible research staff like Lauren. But there are more and more food banks who are looking to invest in statewide population surveys so that they can start to fill the gap around understanding food insecurity as well. Recognizing that it is not going to be comparable due to differences in methodology as Parke was elucidating.

Norbert: Emily, thank you. It's really clear that the loss of the report and the questions about the availability of data, which we'll get into in a moment, raise some really important points about how we're able to know consistently over time and using the same measure of food security.

Norbert: Lauren, I want to turn to you and ask this question. And I'm kind of leading into this by saying that, you know, without a common data source, how might state or local government suggest their own monitoring and reporting? And other data sources do exist, as we've just talked about, but are they measuring food insecurity in different ways? And that's really important to understand issues around, especially children. Can you speak to that for a me?

Lauren: Yes. As a pediatrician, we have to have the 18 item (survey question module) to look at child level food insecurity. So we're looking at are kids skipping meals. Are they not eating for an entire day because there's not enough access to food? And I think we all care about that. And so I think that's a big gap. And I would just strongly suggest as people develop their own surveys in their own area to really do the full 18 item survey question module so we can have comparable data across the system. So, that's one thing, for sure. And then I think your question about how we can do this more at a state level, I can tell the story about how the food bank decided we're going to do this.

So, I was hired as the senior health and research advisor six months before the pandemic broke. We had a strategic plan and a this beautiful vision of what we were gonna do in the next five years. And we presented it to the board in February, got it approved, and then in March everything kind of halted. And so our Chief Operating Officer at that time looked at me and said, how do we know how much longer we have to get all this food out of the warehouse? So, when I came to the food bank, it was very well stocked. We were not getting as much food out as we are now. And then quickly, overnight, we were really needing to get, you know, millions of pounds out every day. So it comes in, it comes out, that's what happens now. And so I actually leaned on Norbert and about 30 really smart researchers who, I remember doing phone calls while my child was in the bouncy house. I had no childcare. And we really figured out how do we do this. So, we created a statewide sample that's representative based on the census track. That takes skill and knowledge that people were willing to donate. And then each year we sample 3000 people, both accessing our programs and not accessing our programs, to really understand what are the barriers to access, what are the facilitators, and then how do we layer SNAP, WIC, universal school meals and the four food banks and the over a thousand food pantries, mobile markets, and community meal distribution programs we have in the state. And we've looked at really interesting things like how does this impact emergency room visits and hospitalizations and costs for the state? And we use it for philanthropy, advocacy, programmatic changes. How do we measure cultural adaptations of the food? We're working with those local farmers we talked about to serve our communities. And each year is a little bit different. And so it's been really exciting. This year we're looking at cliff effect and we'll also ask about, you know, pending SNAP changes and Medicaid changes to the sample. And it really helps us mobilize our resources in the best possible way, work with this 60 plus statewide coalition and amazing researchers across the country to answer the questions that are burning in everyone's mind.

Norbert: Thank you for sharing that. Especially the story of the development of the Massachusetts survey. And one of the things that's really clear from this is you all have created this, and you're able to tell some important stories about Massachusetts. But Massachusetts is just one state and there are things that are unique about Massachusetts relative to, say North Carolina or Nevada or California. And so it does raise important questions of it's great to have Massachusetts doing this work. But what about other states? How will this look? And I want to dig in later about some differences or some issues of the data that you all are collecting. In doing that, I want to change the topic by looking at some of these other data sources in this way.

2025 Greater Boston Food Bank Access Report

Norbert: So we are clear. None of these other data sets replaced a Household Food Security Survey as we know it. In theory, some of these data may still be available, but there are some unknowns about how accessible and cross comparable that information will be. Some data sets are currently restricted only for approved research projects, and these data sets honestly, are really complex and it requires folks with really skilled analytical processing abilities to draw out meaningful conclusions.

I would like to ask all of you two broad questions. So one, what happens when there's no single trusted national source for reporting the food insecurity, prevalence? And two, how might that affect your ability to do the work that you do, whether it's in research or program planning, or even just public communication. What does all this mean for food insecurity in America? Emily, I want to turn to you. What will nonprofits like Feeding America do in the absence of national data reporting?

Emily: So, I am happy to say there's something happy about this. At Feeding America, at least, we have been preparing for this possibility since the beginning of the calendar year. We recognized early that the federal data that we rely on may be at risk. And so we started developing a strategy to try and ensure that we can continue to understand national and local need the best that we were able. So, the strategy really has four pillars. The first is investing in independent and high quality data sources that aren't reliant as much on government data collection. I already talked about the Urban Institute - Well-being and Basic Needs Survey (WBNS). That's something that I think we're really going to be leaning into. And we're also exploring new research partnerships. I don't think any single source is going to replace what the federal government is providing. But we absolutely need to be working together. This community and other folks who care about this lack of data to figure out a more coalesced solution.

The second pillar is around developing alternative methods for local food insecurity. So we're not going to give up on Map the Meal Gap. It started as an innovation that people said couldn't be done. We figured out a way to do it. And we're currently building alternative ways to generate local estimates without the CPS. That's going to be a continuing thing. There's going to be a lot of testing, a lot of trying to figure out what we can do best. That's also an area where we would love to continue conversations with the research community about ideas.

The third pillar is around strengthening state and local data collection capacity across the food bank network. So again, Lauren was talking about the phenomenal work that they've been doing. We know that that's out of reach for a lot of our food banks. How can we support, whether it be providing tools and playbooks for working with other researchers, working with funders, and having some consistency around data collection? And that's sort of on runway right now. We have a few tests that we're running with certain states.

And then finally, you know, what can we do to work non partisanly, constructively with federal partners to help to shape what's next. You know, I think we recognize how important it is to understand food insecurity in a consistent manner. And so how can we collaborate to continue to work towards transparent and rigorous national measurement approaches?

Norbert: This is really important work, and I am grateful that Feeding America has this four point plan to address this and the fact that you all were thinking about these issues in advance. And so I am hopeful. I will say, as a member of the board of a food bank here in North Carolina, I appreciate the opportunities to work with them, to help think through how can we actually begin to do this work as well.

So, Parke, let's go to you. If the food security report is no longer available, and other data sets are available only by request, what impact will this have on researchers and policy makers?

Parke: You know, at first I was thinking the answer to your question was going to be I don't know. But then I got to thinking, no, no, I remember! You know, we've only had this household food security survey for merely 30 years. When I was a younger person I thought that was a long time. But now I know that it's not really so very long. And we can remember what things were like in the decade of the 1980s, the decade before the sort of modern scientific household survey-based measurement was available. And it was a total mess. I mean, there were anthropometric measures, like are the children stunted or wasted? Are they sort of too short for the standard for their age? But those don't capture a large fraction of the hardship in a higher income country like the United States. As Emily said, we would still have a poverty measure. But that really reflects how much resources are coming into the household, not how is the household doing. And it was widely, not just among, you know, democrats, but among people at all of all political perspectives. There's the old USDA food sufficiency question that we talked about. But basically, often when newspapers needed to report how people were doing about hunger, they would use the number of people who were getting emergency food from food pantries and food banks. And you could see what the problem is like. That's a total mix of supply conditions and demand conditions. It's not really measuring how much need is there.

Irma Arteaga, Parke E. Wilde. Measuring Food Security in the United States for More Than 25 years: History, Methods, Findings, and Opportunities. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Volume 123, Issue 10, Supplement S5-S19 October 2023.

Since then, I feel like the public conversation has been more stable, and more factually informed. I think that if we lose the current population survey for a year or two, I think the loss is going to be so dearly felt that in future years, people in the United States, in the Congress, from all walks of life, probably are gonna decide that we need this survey back again. And there's probably gonna be a whole industry of researchers just trying to interpolate the two missing. It'll be like the year that drug testing impacted baseball statistics. You know, it'll be sort of the year with the asterisk as they try to figure out what happened in the missing year.

Norbert: Thank you, Parke. Hearing you say this reminds me of Janet Poppendieck's book, Sweet Charity, where she talks about some of those same issues back in the '80s and the sort of political fallout of folks saying, well, we don't really know if there's hunger in America. We don't know how to measure it. And so it allowed for sort of a difficulty in understanding what were the real challenges. And it obfuscated, it made it hard to understand how families were dealing with this issue.

Lauren, I want to ask you more about the work that you all are doing in Boston looking at Massachusetts in the absence of such federal data. Could we instead collect these data on a state by state basis similar to what you all are doing in Massachusetts? And I know you all have been doing it and been a part of that conversation since its beginning. Could you talk to us about the experience and how these data compare to that of the national data?

Lauren: Yes, so I think each state in theory could do this. And I've been encouraging researchers who are interested in certainly meeting with the team at Feeding America to make those connections between researchers in the state and the food banks. It's been a wonderful partnership, I think, to think about multi-sector ways of approaching food insecurity. It's not just the data, but it's the coalition behind it. So it's been really powerful. However, it was funded for three years by USDA. That money has gone away and so, the food bank has to fundraise money to keep the data going. To keep the team there and to keep this as rigorous as possible. It also is about a year cycle of all of the data collection, the analysis, the report pieces and our stakeholder engagement. So it does require quite a bit of time. And we love to share our data. I think we're unique in that way. I love to work with other researchers and give this data to those who want it. However, from a regulatory standpoint, it's owned by my IRB (Institutional Review Board) and I need to use data use agreements with other folks to do that. So it's not as accessible as the USDA data too. And then finally, we use an online platform to obtain the data, which keeps the costs down. I would say that was the biggest thing. However, our estimates are always higher than the USDA food insecurity estimates. And so we like to look at as trends, as Parke mentioned. I think the trends have been completely on target with the USDA data. But it would be really helpful to continue to have the USDA data obtained in the same way for 30 years versus ours for the last six.

Norbert: This is our last question for the panel. Friends, we've heard a lot of concern about the loss of this report and the access or control of the data. But we've also heard some creativity. I've got to be honest with you, I am mourning the loss of this data, or at least the report because of how we've been able to use it. But in this mourning and this grieving, I also recognize that I have some hope. Hope that we'll figure out some way forward of providing this information in a timely and useful, accessible way.

So I want to ask my panelists, what gives you hope out of this process? And it's perfectly fine if you're not there yet. But I would love to hear what are you thinking about how we can move forward? Let's start off with Emily.

Emily: Thanks, Norbert. And it's a great question. And it's, I think, really important. I think because we had spent so much time planning and thinking about this in advance, it was surprising but not shocking or maybe the other way around. But I also feel like I've had some time, and I do also have hope. I have hope in the present and I have hope in the past in what we've seen. So, you know, my current hope is really, I'm just so encouraged by the extraordinary amount of effort of outreach that we've seen since the cancellation was announced. We've heard from researchers, foundations, other nonprofits, policy organizations who've reached out just immediately with real urgency. And it hasn't just been this is a problem. This is a problem. It's been, how can we help, how can we build together? How can we figure this out? And I think it is rare to see that kind of alignment across such different parts of the field. So, people are recognizing that this consistent, comparable data is essential. And there's all this passion and expertise that's ready to be mobilized. I do think one of the key questions for us to figure out is what does it look like to convene? What does it look like to come together and think about how we're going to address this as a community? Another thing you know, is hope in history. And, I've been thinking a lot about in the past when governments aren't asking the right questions, communities and scholars have stepped in and innovated. And you know, the example that I like to invoke is W. E. B. Du Bois. And in the 1890s, he didn't wait for official comprehensive data on Black communities. You know, he went door to door in Philadelphia. He collected information on health and housing, employment. He created one of the first sociological maps in the US to show neighborhood-level inequity and resilience through the Atlanta University studies. As Norbert you were mentioning when we were chatting before, he built this national network of scholars to document Black life across the country. Black farmers, Black communities in the South, and groups that federal data systems had overlooked. So, I think we have historical precedence that rigorous and community-centered research can fill gaps. And it can help push us forward. So that's where I find hope.

Lauren: So I think I am very hopeful that there are other states who are interested in doing some of the similar work that we have done. In fact, I'm also very thankful for the network of researchers we collaborated with during COVID, which is called the National Food Access and COVID Research Team. And that team has come back together. We've also been working with the statewide coalitions that have really been built because of COVID and it was an emergency and we're in an emergency again. And I feel as though the infrastructure grants that were put into place has allowed our food banks and the other food banks in the state to really rise to this unprecedented occasion in a way that we wouldn't have been six years ago. So, I'm sort of thankful we've done this before and we can be flexible and do this again.

Parke: You know, Norbert, I retain a hopeful confidence that the American people want to know the answer to these questions. The way I figure it, people from all walks of life in this country want to know how is the country doing on food insecurity and hunger because it's an important thing that we care about. Sometimes you hear a message that maybe benevolence and care for this sort of issue is a partisan perspective. But I can't believe it. I can't believe that that's a partisan perspective. All our great faith traditions teach us to care for the poor and hungry. And if you don't have confidence in that sort of sense of benevolence, then I figure I want to try self-interest. Because, you know, a lot of Americans have a lot to lose if we don't invest in making sure that people at all income levels have adequate resources to maintain their food demand. There's people in the United States who work in the retail industry. If people don't have enough money to spend on food, retail retailers make less money. And the food manufacturers that supply them make less money. And all of the farmers in the country, more than 2 million farm households in the United States, all of them make less money if we don't have people who have an adequate amount of food demand. And so through, I think, a combination of goodwill and the spirit of the American economy, I sort of have hope that why wiser heads are going to prevail at some point on wanting us to know how are we doing with, important scientifically collected measures on this topic.

Audience Questions

Since the evidence on SNAP's benefits are already so strong, how do we help move policy conversations away from debating settled science and toward protecting these programs from erosion? And more specifically, how can we safeguard all evidence-based food programs from newer ideological pressures like the MAHA movement that aim to destabilize them?

Emily: I will just pop in and also to build, Parke, off what you were saying, I do think that it's really important for us to be communicating and understanding the societal and economic impact of these programs. And we, I think, have done a really good job of understanding, for example, the impact of SNAP participation on food insecurity. But we need to also be making the case around the business economy and the societal impacts. And how do we share that information in a way that maybe resonates more in the current administrative environment. And that's something that at Feeding America, we are hoping to invest in and planning to invest in more over the next six months.

Parke: I think on its best day, the Make America Healthy Again movement is sort of an expression of interest in having the federal government take interest in what is it in our food environment that lets people have access to healthy and nutritious food rather than being overwhelmed with all these signals of less healthy food. On its worst days, some of the same communication channels are talking about messages that are really sort of anti-science. And so I think we need to take this question seriously about how are those interests doing on their best day? And when we think about that, we think not just about sort of paternalistically telling low income Americans you all should eat better. But instead thinking about kind of a consistent themed combination of policies that aren't too paternalistic and address people at all income levels. I think when you have SNAP policies that are kind of in that fair-minded spirit, I'm all for them. Like far from being a opponent. I think lots of people in the health sciences and in places like nutrition schools actually support many of those ideas.

Can a comparable effort be taken by an NGO with private funding to replicate what the Feds have been doing?

Lauren: I can certainly start. I think there was some communication around that at the beginning of this cancellation. And I worry if we have multiple nationally representative sources that are conflicting with others, that they will not be taken seriously. And we heard from Emily that there's been investment in Urban Institute to do a national representative sample. And so I do worry. This comes up with me every year where my Massachusetts data is not completely consistent with the USDA food insecurity data that that data is scrutinized. And so I do worry if we have multiple private enterprises doing this and it's not a concerted effort that the legitimacy of that will also be threatened.

In addition to the Administration's decision to eliminate some data collection and analysis efforts, do you have a sense of federal staff capacity to continue to support the many national surveys that depend on USDA food security data, in light of reduction in force efforts implemented this year, and recent elimination of NHANES staff at CDC? So what is a sense of the capacity of the federal government to do this in light of some of the changes that have taken place?

Parke: You know, we talked about one of my misgivings with NHANES is that the sampling is kind of less suitable for nationally representative data in all geographies at all times of year. But the question is sort of aware of something, which is that some of these alternate data sources, in addition, are facing their own threats this year, right? So the Center for Disease Control is having a very rough year and I think that we can't assume that having these questions on NHANES is going to be a replacement in the next year.

Can you offer insight into the reasoning behind discontinuing the USDA US Household Food Security Survey? As we think about how best to communicate its importance, do you believe framing its value in terms of national economic impact, or tax utilization as Parke Wilde has suggested, is most likely to resonate with the current Administration, or are there other priority frames we should be considering? How should we frame this argument to help bolster the report and its data?

Lauren: I think some of the conversation, Parke, that you talked about, no one really wants people to go hungry at night. I think that's actually why the food banks get so much support during these times. Like, we see an outpouring. Everyone is doing a can drive at their preschools or their schools or whatever. No one wants to see a person hungry. So if we cannot measure it, I think it's really pulling at those heartstrings. I also think when the SNAP benefits were not released when the go during the government shutdown, I think the most powerful stories were from people with lived expertise. And lifting those stories versus some of the data. And so I think just really having our neighbors' voices there and highlighted is another incredible way of advocating. And doing this in partnership with client or patient advisors is the only way really to make research relevant. And so has been really important piece of my work and centering me and what data needs to be collected and what policy makers should hear.

Emily: I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but I do think that being able to demonstrate the cost of food insecurity... you know, we did some work with Hillary Seligman at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Seth Berkowitz, at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. This was quite a few years ago, but estimating the healthcare costs of food insecurity at the nationally and then at the state level. And I think those points have been really compelling for people to understand how expensive it is for the healthcare industry for us to not be addressing food insecurity. How can we create similar parallel arguments for different industries that we know have have influence and care about these issues.