As the world begins to emerge from the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, many emergency food support programs are ending. Yet, researchers say the conditions that led to the creation of the programs haven't gone away.
"There's a lag effect in how long it takes for society to recover…just because the worst of the pandemic seems to have passed, we can't expect that people are necessarily in a good financial situation yet and that they will be food secure," Ashley McCarthy, a ¶¶Òõ̽̽ postdoctoral associate, said. McCarthy is a member of (NFACT), a collaboration of researchers across 15 states exploring the impact of COVID-19 on food access, food security and food systems.
In 2020, ¶¶Òõ̽̽ Nutrition and Food Sciences Associate Professor Meredith Niles spearheaded the collaboration between ¶¶Òõ̽̽'s Nutrition and Food Sciences Department and the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University to create what would ultimately become NFACT. The team of transdisciplinary experts brought together a broad range of experts in dietetics, disaster relief, nutrition, farming systems, food access, policymaking, and public health. The creation of the team has proved important and fruitful, with a number of publications stemming from the team on the relationship between the pandemic and , , , and more, including as well.
NFACT began their work with support from a ¶¶Òõ̽̽ Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) amd COVID-19 grant and initially focused on Northern New England. The team's of over 3,000 Vermonters was launched online in March 2020, less than a week after the Governor's Stay Home/Stay Safe order.
"We were able to tap into our relationships and the Vermont legislature and get in front of policymakers very quickly," said NFACT member and Clinical Assistant Professor Farryl Bertmann. "It gave policymakers a look at the barriers to food access and the opportunities. It helped tell the story of what would become the current universal school lunch pilot. Schools could think about what is necessary to enroll students and how to eliminate burdens."
The Vermont Universal School Meals pilot, which began in 2020, made lunch free for all students and continued through the 2022 to 2023 school year. Though, its future is unknown. , an education and advocacy organization, is leading a campaign to ensure Universal School Meals become permanent in every public school in Vermont. If is enacted, Vermont would become the sixth state to offer universal school meals.
As the team begins year two of a three-year grant, they say the results of their most recent survey, , show that even as the pandemic winds down, there is still a strong need for food assistance programs. The survey of 1,000 adults, conducted in partnership with ¶¶Òõ̽̽ and the University of Maine, found that the prevalence of food insecurity in northern New England (Vermont and Maine) remains similarly high to early points in the pandemic. Roughly 29 percent of survey respondents reported food insecurity.
"It is quite concerning to see a lot of these support mechanisms ending now, especially so many of them coming to a close at the same time," McCarthy said.
In early 2023, the temporary pandemic boost to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ended in Vermont and many other states. People who received benefits saw a reduction of at least $95 and up to $250 a month, according to the .
"In our most recent survey from 2022, we were still seeing elevated food insecurity and a lot of concerns around inflation and how that's affecting people's food purchasing. We're still seeing a lot of challenges with gas prices and housing prices too. There are all these things that intersect that are going to continue to affect folks." McCarthy said. One example McCarthy says is that changes to benefits are happening at the same time the pause is expected to end.
In the spring of 2023 to help remedy the situation, Pandemic EBT, a program for eligible school children to receive temporary emergency nutrition benefits on EBT cards, was shared to provide back payments to some families. Still, Bertmann says there may be issues with education around who gets the benefits, how to use them, and if the benefits are helpful, especially for those who may have lingering concerns regarding their immigration status and select federal program participation, which was put at risk during Trump-era changes to the . Since overturned, community education and support may help households navigate decisions around benefits and their residency, visa, or green card status.
"What would my solution be? Bringing in community members who have this shared lived experience to make sure that they are very much part of the conversation," Bertmann said. "So, immigration status or other concerns are being considered in a way that makes sense."
Moving Toward More Informed Decisions in a Post-Pandemic Era
Since 2020, with additional grant support from the Gund Institute for Environment, the (NNE CTR), and the (USDA), the Niles-directed NFACT expanded to include researchers at 19 sites across 16 states.
The Northern New England NFACT team's next survey, , will be launched in 2024. It will focus on the two most rural U.S. states- Maine and Vermont- to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural food security and health, and identify economic development and resilience opportunities for recovery and the future.
Bertmann and McCarthy say that while COVID-19 created an opening for research, the problems they found weren't solely related to COVID, and the need to understand them continues to exist.
"Rather, COVID created a situation that illuminated weaknesses within our system and shone a light on the fractures of our system," Bertmann said. "We want to continue to understand what those fractures are so they can be addressed in case another disturbance arises."
The 2024 survey will also continue to evolve as issues are identified. The researchers have brought in additional focus areas in recent years, including questions related to home food production like gardening and hunting, intuitive eating to understand mental health and food, and health behaviors and substance abuse.
"Within the dietetics community, the last thing we want to do is stigmatize coping with food because there could be alternative destructive and toxic ways that people cope. And we're looking at ways to make peace with food, make peace with our bodies, through group counseling, through individual support," Bertmann said.
McCarthy is focused on identifying rural areas within the New England region with simultaneous low food and healthcare access, including for mental health resources. She says rural communities have historically faced higher levels of food insecurity and lower healthcare access than urban areas while simultaneously having lower levels of overall health and that COVID-19 exacerbated this. A key finding from the team’s 2022 survey of Maine and Vermont residents revealed that individuals with food insecurity were significiantly more likely to have anxiety or depression, and also up to 7 times more likely to skip or stop their medication for anxiety, depression, or hypertension than food-secure respondents.
“We want to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural food security and health, and identify economic development and resilience opportunities for recovery and the future. If we can understand what food and healthcare access looks like in our rural communities, we can start addressing some of those gaps to improve people’s lives," McCarthy said.
Additional members of the Northern New England NFACT team from ¶¶Òõ̽̽ include: Emily Belarmino, Sam Bliss, Jennifer Laurent, Scott Merrill, Rebecca Mitchell, and Sarah Nowak. The team also includes researchers from the University of Maine: Janica Anderzen, Jonathan Malacarne, Rachel Schattman, and Kate Yerxa.
About The Food Systems Research Center:
The Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) at ¶¶Òõ̽̽ (¶¶Òõ̽̽) uncovers solutions to society’s most pressing issues through the lens of our food system to improve human health, well-being and livelihoods, and environmental sustainability. The Research Center is a partnership between ¶¶Òõ̽̽ and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) focused on the Northeast U.S. but considers the relationship of food systems across scales from local to global. With over 100 funded faculty, staff, and student collaborators in Vermont and across the world, the FSRC conducts interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to study food systems: the networks of people, institutions, physical infrastructure, and natural resources through which food is grown, processed, distributed, sold, prepared, and eaten.
