Homeless/Food Quiz

Alma Garcia, 557 words

            "A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity" by Kelly Stamper Balistreri states the research of food insecurity by their race, among low-income households who have children and the ones who don't. Food insecurity has been rising more and more in the US. Food insecurity is not being able to have much access to food. Over 6.9 million households in the US have very low food security. Even though the rates of employment had been rising in the year of 2008 there is another factor that plays into the role of food insecurity. Since employment went up so did food prices. This article also states that another reason that there is still insecurity in the US is because of the collapse of housing prices. This also played a big role in food insecurity. During the recession there was a hike in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) rising from 8.5% of the population in 2008 to 15% in 2013. Since there was a high increase of people needing assistance many individuals were limited to this service which were mainly adults without kids. In 2014 about 10.5% White household's food insecure, but the higher numbers came from Blacks with 26.1% and Hispanics with 22.4%. Food insecurity has long term consequences for children and adult's well-being. It has been related to lower adult's general physical health as well as of poor health outcomes such as diabetes and hypertension. The studies also show that among children it affects their general health as well as them getting anemia and asthma. The methods used for this research was the current population survey (CPS) and the Food Security Supplement (FSS). This was done for many years. There was three points chosen for this study which were 2001 to 2003, 2006-2008, and 2011-2013. These times were used to see the changes during the recession and the post-recession. The implications of this research study states that any cuts to SNAP funding may have a huge impact on low-income households.

            "Understanding Food Insecurity Among Latino Immigrant Families in Rural America" states how low-income Latino immigrant families either succeeded or failed to meet their food needs. The reason for this study is to understand why some Latino immigrant's families are constantly successful in meeting their food needs and some aren't. Using a case study approach, ten families were selected to represent food secure and food insecure groups. Maintaining food security was very tough and complicated for families. Over 13 million U.S. households are food insecure which were categorized as having low food security or very low food security. One-in-five U.S. children live in a food insecure household. Even though Latino immigrants have been contributing billions of dollars to rural communities as laborers and consumers their presence may stress the local resources and may be unable to meet their basic needs. These families participated in this study from four different states which were California, Michigan, Oregon, and Iowa. California's participants were mainly second generation, Michigan's were mainly migrant workers, and Oregon's and Iowa's participants were "semi-settled" residents who migrated to the U.S. in the past 20 years. Many mothers were recruited through community organizations such as WIC or head start. The research suggests that an effective way to ensure food security may be to strengthen their basic literacy skills and life skills such as knowledge of basic nutrition, health practices, and family planning. The root of the issue may also be because they are lacking in English fluency. 

Alline Wright SOC 111 582 words

         

The article "Revisiting the Contact Hypothesis: The Case of Public Exposure to Homelessness" used researchers' 1990 national telephone survey to find a survey sample of 1,388 individuals to conduct interviews for ten dollars each. The dependent variables of the interview were nine scales assessing the interviewees' attitudes on homelessness: structural causes, individual causes, role competency, dangerousness, positive emotions, lack of empathy, community burden, support of rights and willingness to sacrifice. The independent variables were 14 exposure types comprised into four dimensions, which transformed into the overall exposure scale. Race, income, employment status, age, sex and education were all controlled variables. The goal was to see how the measures of exposure affected attitudes towards the homeless differently. The overall exposure resulted in strongly influencing attitudes about homeless people in a positive way, which supports the simplified contact hypothesis. The more exposure the respondent had resulted in lower amounts of attributing homelessness to individual causes and increased willingness to make sacrifices to support homeless people. Older aged respondents and minorities were less supportive and sympathetic towards the homeless. Because many minority citizens live in areas that have a high homeless population, their exposure is greater than their white counterparts, resulting in more Hispanics' with non-supportive attitudes. Voluntary exposure, like television, can be less impactful than involuntary, like having a homeless family member, but each dimension reveals greater sympathy for homeless people. Personally overcoming homelessness was not a significant factor increasing positive attitudes towards the homeless. One in ten respondents admitted to avoidance mechanisms, like using alternative public transportation to ensure a homeless-free route. Increased avoidance did not support the hypothesis because it correlated with higher exposure levels. This was explained by the concept that when too extreme, exposure can increase a dislike for the out-group, whom are the homeless.  Lastly, African Americans were more likely than women and elder interviewees to interact and be exposed to homeless people.

            The next article, "The Impact of Slavery on Racial Inequality in Poverty in the Contemporary U.S. South," uses county-level data from the 2000 U.S. Census and population data from the 1860 U.S. Census for the U.S. South, excluding Oklahoma. The poverty threshold calculated based on a four person family was 33,000 to $64,000. Some Southern counties varied in geographic location from the 1860 data set to contemporary counties, but it was critical to keep spatial consistency by adding a .25 weight, evenly distributing a quarter of 1860's slave population data among the contemporary data set.  One limitation is that slaves used to be bulkily populated around rural plantations, so the displacement of slave populations could cause skewed results. Least squares regression model and spatial data analysis tools demonstrated how the legacy of slavery correlated with poverty in racial inequality. The final model only used the variables that related to the slave legacy, which was measured by dividing the number of slaves in 1860 data by the total 1860 population. The independent variable poverty covariates in the final model were the proportion black, proportion of blacks squared, homeownership, agriculture, manufacturing, FIRE, single-mother families, and middleclass. A counties' structural factors were accounted for the surrounding levels of racial inequality throughout the South.  Middle class income and the number of agricultural-based employees did not conform to expectations. Counties with a higher proportion of these variables resulted in greater racial inequality. The black proportion of a county is positive and vitally related to black disadvantage, but is a separated concept from the 1860 slave concentrations because racial threat was found to be insignificant.  Overall, Southern counties that had a stronger connection to slavery showed disproportionately higher racially unequal poverty rates than counties that were loosely connected to the slave population.

Parinav Kanwar

                                                                              

                                                                                  Parinav Kanwar  382  words

A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity

This research focused on measuring the effect of the food insecurity among various groups in United states. The data was obtained from current population survey in Food Security Supplement during 2001 to 2003, 2006-2008 and 2011-2013. A food security scale by USDA was used to gather data and then normalized to Food Insecurity Index. The results indicated higher food insecurity among households with children than without children. A rapid increase in food insecurity among in low income households without children. It was also found that low income black households children had higher food insecurity while also had high depth and severity. White household children had higher depth and severity of food security than Hispanic households. Black children who had no children had an increased disadvantage. The results could be due to differences in race and ethnic variation in recovery since great recession.

Understanding Food Insecurity Among Latino Immigrant Families in Rural America

This study sampled Latino immigrant mothers from Rural Families Speak project. Latino women were from California, Michigan and Oregon and Iowa, who were at least 18 years of age and below federal poverty line.  The collected data from project was analyzed using grounded theory and second stage utilized coding scheme while the third phase used methodology of Miles and Huberman to identify family experiences pattern. The results indicated that food secure families had good health as well as essential life skills, knowledge of community resources and husbands with table employment as compared to food insecure families. Also, food insecure families had low literacy levels which impacted other aspects in their life. This group also received poor support from family and friends than food secure families. The results can be explained through ecological theory, which indicated that food insecurity was the results of factors and in reaction from ecological levels such as income etc. Food security is complicated tasking to achieve has many factors involved.

Both of these articles focused on food insecurity while the purpose of the first study was to discuss food insecurity and its relationship with children and income level in various racial groups such as white, Hispanic and blacks. Second study was more focused on one particular group Latino families but explored many effects of food insecurity on families. Although both studies provide a better insight into the issues of food insecurity presence in many racial groups. 

Ashley Meneses

The first article I read was Monitoring Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty in South Africa. In this article they found that South Africans mainly had three views towards the cause of poverty in their country. The first being individualistic explanations, essentially blaming solely the person, structural explanation, believing that there are social and economical factors that play a factor, and fatalistic explanations, meaning that the cause of poverty is an individual's bad luck or illness they may have. In order to find the most viewed perception they made a survey of mainly agree/disagree answers to a total of 3,498 random South Africans. Within this survey they made sure to take into account all of the different demographics that makes each participant unique, such as their race, gender, age, income, and much more. After receiving all of the results many statistical measures were taken to see if there was a correlation between any demographic and a certain perception towards the cause of poverty. One thing that was found was that whites didn't have to struggle to maintain basic necessities of life compared to the other races. Also that there wasn't even a race that voted a majority in a certain mindset, instead all of the answers varied even within a race group. By looking over all of the answers they found that there really wasn't an impact of demographics on a person's perception.

The second article that I chose to read was called, "A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth, and Severity of Food Insecurity". Since the year 2000 and especially after the Great Recession in 2008 food insecurity has been raising. Food insecurity is the inability to maintain sufficient amounts of food within a household, and with that they found that black households have the biggest disadvantage regarding income which hinders the ability to have access to enough food. Many things are tied together with the issue of food insecurity, if a household has low income that leads to food insecurity and with that they members of the family begin to have health issues. Which especially in children can lead to problems with their cognitive development, lead to higher probabilities of anxiety and aggression and behavioral problems. What they chose to do was to pick 2 year spans before, during and after the recession. Within this they had a number of households answer questions and with those answers they formed a point system and depending on the amount of points in the end they could determine their food stability. From their findings the houses with low incomes and no children had the quickest increase in food insecurity. As I mentioned before blacks had the highest rate of food insecurity yet when looking at the numbers and data they found that they had a very low change in food insecurity over the decade examined. There was no change in the hispanic households with low income and children. The race with the greatest change in food insecurity were the white low income households with children increasing in all three time spans. Overall food insecurity is a problem that is affecting many households in the US, some may be hit more than others but is something that should be known and will sadly always be an issue.

Quiz

Caitlynn Toste Homeless/Food Quiz

Caitlynn Toste

Word Count: 372

Homeless/Food Quiz

"A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity" is an article reviewing and studying the statistics of poverty in the United States. This study reviews the time period from 2000 to 2014 to study the differences between before the recession (2001-2003), during the recession (2006-2008), and after the recession (2011-2013). Food insecurity was measured by the experience in the household in the last twelve months and measured in a scale that has 18 items to classify the severity of food insecurity in different households. In this study they found that there has not been any recovery to food insecurity since the Great Recession (Balistreri, 2016). In patterns of food insecurity, they found that low-income black families with children had the highest rate of food insecurity while, low-income Hispanic households with children had no change in their food insecurity (Balistreri, 2016). In low-income white households with children, Balistreri found that food insecurity rapidly increased (Balistreri, 2016).

While "Monitoring Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty in South Africa" is an article that reviewed and studied how individuals view the poor. This survey included results from 3,498 randomly selected South Africans and participants were surveyed on individualistic explanations, structural explanations, and fatalistic explanations (Davids and Gouws, 2013). Individualistic explanations meaning the blame is completely on the poor, structural explanation meaning the blame is n the social and economic forces, and fatalistic explanations meaning the blame is on the bad luck or illness of the poor person. In this survey, the participants included a variation of race, these races included; 76% black Africans, 12% whites, 9% colored, and 3% Indian/Asian, and when they are grouped by gender 49% were male and 51% were female (Davids and Gouws, 2013). This study has concluded that many factors have pushed individuals to become poor, whites have a greater amount of access to everyday necessities then other races, and there is a variation in opinions of the poor that was based on racial groups (Davids and Gouws, 2013). It was also concluded that age, education, employment, and gender were not factors that significantly impacted the rates of poverty and discovered that poverty is seen on both the structural and individualistic aspects (Davids and Gouws, 2013). 

Priscilla Gabriel

Priscilla Gabriel, 478 words

A Decade of Change: Measuring the Extent, Depth and Severity of Food Insecurity

            In this article, they looked at the rates of food insecurity in the US. They wanted to find out whether the rates were increasing or decreasing. To do this, they did a study that ranged from 2001 to 2003, 2006 to 2008, and 2011 to 2013. During these years they used the Current Population Survey and the Food Security Supplement survey to gather their findings. Some factors that these surveys addressed were whether the households had children or not and also the different races of those taking the survey. There were many questions some asking if their children couldn't eat because of money problems or if they didn't have enough food to last them till they got more money for more food. These surveys showed them that the food insecurity rate had increased greatly because of low income. Many people were unemployed or didn't make enough money to buy enough food for their family. They also found that the rate of those unemployed or in poverty were higher among Black and Hispanic households. Another thing they found was that the rate of those households with children were higher than those without children, however those households without children had a higher increase rate throughout the years.

 

Mental Health Correlates of Past Homelessness in Latinos and Asians

            This article looked at the number of homeless Latinos and Asians and whether any mental illness was a factor in these findings. To get the data they needed they used the National Latino and Asian American Study. In this study, they had multiple surveys asking Latinos and Asian Americans whether they have been homeless and if so how long. These surveys also asked if they had any mental illnesses or history of substance abuse. After doing this survey they were able to gather a lot of information. This was the first study that had data about Asian Americans being homeless. This study showed that only 1.3% of Asians reported being homeless for a week or more. They also found that those Asian Americans who were homeless had a history of being on welfare. Although they were able to gather data about Asian Americans, there wasn't much Asians who were homeless. They believed this was because most Asians feel they should care for sick family members which led to a low number of reported homeless. Next, this study found that there was a higher reported rate for Latinos. About 4.7% of Latinos reported being homeless for a week or more. Those who reported being homeless were more likely to have a history of substance abuse. Many of these Latinos reported that they attended church services more than once a week. They believed that this led the rates of homelessness to decrease because many Latinos found church as a cure.