IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i8p1684-d162480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Overlooked Burden of Food Insecurity among Asian Americans: Results from the California Health Interview Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Monideepa B. Becerra

    (Department of Health Science and Human Ecology, California State University, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407, USA)

  • Salome Kapella Mshigeni

    (Department of Health Science and Human Ecology, California State University, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407, USA)

  • Benjamin J. Becerra

    (School of Allied Health Professions, Loma Linda University, 24951 North Circle Drive, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA)

Abstract

Objective : Food insecurity remains a major public health issue in the United States, though lack of research among Asian Americans continue to underreport the issue. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and burden of food insecurity among disaggregated Asian American populations. Methods : The California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey, was used to assess the prevalence of food insecurity among Asian American subgroups with primary exposure variable of interest being acculturation. Survey-weighted descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable robust Poisson regression analyses, were conducted and alpha less than 0.05 was used to denote significance. Results : The highest prevalence of food insecurity was found among Vietnamese (16.42%) and the lowest prevalence was among Japanese (2.28%). A significant relationship was noted between prevalence of food insecurity and low acculturation for Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese subgroups. Language spoken at home was significant associated with food insecurity. For example, among Chinese, being food insecure was associated with being bilingual (prevalence ratio [PR] = 2.51) or speaking a non-English language at home (PR = 7.24), while among South Asians, it was associated with speaking a non-English language at home was also related to higher prevalence (PR = 3.62), as compared to English speakers only. Likewise, being foreign-born also related to being food insecure among Chinese (PR = 2.31), Filipino (PR = 1.75), South Asian (PR = 3.35), Japanese (PR = 2.11), and Vietnamese (PR = 3.70) subgroups, when compared to their US-born counterparts. Conclusion : There is an imperative need to address food insecurity burden among Asian Americans, especially those who have low acculturation.

Suggested Citation

  • Monideepa B. Becerra & Salome Kapella Mshigeni & Benjamin J. Becerra, 2018. "The Overlooked Burden of Food Insecurity among Asian Americans: Results from the California Health Interview Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-11, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:8:p:1684-:d:162480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/8/1684/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/8/1684/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, P. & Bhatia, R., 2011. "Supporting equitable food systems through food assistance at farmers' markets," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(5), pages 781-783.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hales, Laura J. & Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, 2024. "Household Food Insecurity Across Race and Ethnicity in the United States, 2016–21," Economic Information Bulletin 341822, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Christina Mary Pollard & Sue Booth, 2019. "Addressing Food and Nutrition Security in Developed Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-5, July.
    3. Joshua Berning & Caroline Norris & Rebecca Cleary, 2023. "Food insecurity among immigrant populations in the United States," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(1), pages 41-57, February.
    4. Bianca R. Argueza & Karen Sokal-Gutierrez & Kristine A. Madsen, 2020. "Obesity and Obesogenic Behaviors in Asian American Children with Immigrant and US-Born Mothers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-11, March.
    5. Christina M Pollard & Sue Booth, 2019. "Food Insecurity and Hunger in Rich Countries—It Is Time for Action against Inequality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-13, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meng Wang & Vikas Kumar & Ximing Ruan & Mohammed Saad & Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes & Anil Kumar, 2022. "Sustainability concerns on consumers’ attitude towards short food supply chains: an empirical investigation," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 76-92, June.
    2. Rebecca L. Som Castellano, 2017. "Receiving Assistance and Local Food System Participation," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Dimitri, Carolyn & Oberholtzer, Lydia & Zive, Michelle & Sandolo, Cristina, 2015. "Enhancing food security of low-income consumers: An investigation of financial incentives for use at farmers markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 64-70.
    4. André Nogueira & Weslynne Ashton & Carlos Teixeira & Elizabeth Lyon & Jonathan Pereira, 2020. "Infrastructuring the Circular Economy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-24, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:8:p:1684-:d:162480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.