The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #48543

Tanya Thampi-Sen, MPH, RD, Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, 2901 W. Hunting Park Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19129, 215-430-0555, tanya_thampi@hotmail.com and Francine Axler, MPH, Division of Research and Evaluation, Philadelphia Health Management Corporation, 260 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

Prior to 2000, there were no data regarding the prevalence of food insecurity among residents of Philadelphia. As a result, the Philadelphia Working Group on Food Security Research, a group comprised of nutritionists, researchers, program administrators, academicians and students, met with the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC), a private, nonprofit public health organization in Philadelphia, to discuss including questions from the USDA’s 6-item Food Security Survey (FSS) on PHMC’s 2000 Southeastern Pennsylvania (SEPA) Household Health Survey. The survey, one of the largest local surveys in the US, is conducted by telephone to over 10,000 households and includes questions regarding health status, personal health behaviors, access and utilization of health services. The two hunger questions included in the survey are: (1) In the last 12 months, did you or other adults in your household ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there was not enough money in the budget for food? (2) In the last 12 months, were you or other adults in your household ever hungry but did not eat because you could not afford enough food? The data generated from the PHMC survey has been instrumental for local hunger advocacy. The information serves as a way to explore the issue of food security in a large urban area and will serve to help people with no or limited food resources more effectively. The group is currently working with PHMC regarding adding additional hunger questions from the FSS on the 2002 survey.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the importance of collaborations between non-profits and academia in order to obtain important quantitative data on food security.
• Utilize existing agency resources in order to "piggy-back" with a larger periodic household survey.
• Identify reproducible strategies to obtain similar quantitative food security data in other cities in the nation.

Keywords: Food Security, Collaboration

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.