New research on food insecurity in the U.S. finds that African-Americans are disproportionately affected, with over 25 percent of all black households lacking access to enough food to live a healthy lifestyle.
The data stems from a recent study called “Map the Meal Gap,” set to be released Monday by Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.
“Millions of Americans live at risk of hunger,” says Bob Aiken, Feeding America’s president and CEO.
Research shows that many of the millions Aiken mentions are black families who lack the income or resources necessary to maintain a healthy diet or gain access to food.
As a result, the organization says, one in three African-American children live in food insecure households where many are families served by Feeding America or its affiliates.
African-Americans disproportionately affected by food insecurity
The data compiled and distributed by Feeding America comes from raw national statistics provided by the federal government, then analyzed by the organization’s researchers on a congressional district and county level.
Results of this year’s “Meal Gap” study — the third done by the organization — show a number of African-Americans who are food insecure – with black households more than twice as likely to face food insecurity as white, non-Hispanic homes.
More specifically, research states that of the 104 U.S. counties with a majority black population, 92 percent of these counties also record high food insecurity rates.
This includes counties in many of the southern states including Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina. For example, the Meal Gap study found that the food insecurity rate in Jefferson County, MS was 34.4 percent; versus 28.2 percent in Macon County, Alabama; 26.6 percent in Petersburg City, VA; 33 percent in Allendale County; 30.6 percent in East Carroll Parish, LA; Dougherty County, GA, 27.5 percent and Lee County, SC 25 percent.
Even in counties considered bastions of more affluent black communities, food insecurity can be found. Prince Georges County, Maryland has a food insecurity rate of 15.6 percent while New York County, which includes New York City, has a rate of 16.3 percent.
“We serve 1.5 million residents across all five boroughs,” Triada Stampas, the senior director of government relations for the Food Bank for New York City, tells theGrio. “A large portion or a majority of those are people of color.”
Unemployment and poverty: two major drivers of food insecurity
Researchers say much of this can be attributed to high unemployment and poverty levels among African-Americans. Data shows that unemployment is significantly higher among blacks than whites and that in 2011, blacks were almost twice as likely to be unemployed as whites.
“Poverty and unemployment are the two major drivers for food insecurity,” Emily Engelhard, director of social policy research and analysis for Feeding America tells theGrio. “High poverty and unemployment disproportionately affects African-Americans.”
Engelhard says the number of people who are food insecure drastically increased in 2008 due in large part to the crash in the housing market and the economic downturn.
“We saw a huge jump in food insecurity levels nationwide in 2008; it went from 36 percent to 49 percent,” Ross Fraser, director of media relations for Feeding America, tells theGrio.
With the shuttering of many businesses and large numbers of layoffs during the 2008 recession, unemployment rose to 7.2 percent from 4.9 percent the year before, and it reached 10 percent by December 2009.
Today, with the unemployment rate back down to 7.5 percent, Labor Department data shows the current unemployment rate for African-Americans is still high. At 13.2 percent, the percentage of unemployed blacks is the highest among all racial groups.
Estella Mayhue-Greer, president and CEO of the Mid-South Food Bank in Mississippi, says unemployment deeply impacts the counties her organization serves.
“When the housing industry went under it had a great impact and left many people unemployed, primarily people of color,” Mayhue-Greer tells theGrio. “It’s a struggle; African-Americans are the first ones to be laid off most of the time and I see it over and over again.”
Other contributing factors to food insecurity among African-Americans
Other factors also contribute to the high number of blacks who do not have regular access to food.
Frasser lists lack of public transportation as one reason. He says that 40 percent of the people Feeding America helps serve do not have access to a car, which limits their ability to travel to grocery stores or food bank service locations.
Lack of education is another big factor, Mayhue-Greer says.
“A lot of people don’t have GEDs or high school diplomas, particularly in the south. Education is a problem,” she adds. “People who worked at factories and have that as their only skill, don’t know how to find jobs.”
In an effort to provide a solution to the problem of so many without food, Mayhue-Greer says her organization began a mobile pantry distribution where workers and volunteers travel to those in need to provide the necessary food and resources.
However, despite the high number of blacks in need, their turnout in the distribution lines fell below Mayhue-Greer’s expectations.
“When we started doing mobile pantry distribution there wasn’t a single African-American in line because they didn’t know about it,” she says. “That’s the biggest issue, African-Americans are not aware of the resources available to them when often they are the ones most in need.”
Aid provided from government organizations
Government assistance also plays a large role in providing affordable food and resources to those in need.
While, Engelhard says SNAP is often the first line of defense for low-income Americans, many African-Americans who are eligible for benefits are not enrolled.
Data shows that 26 percent of the black families Feeding America serves report no contact from SNAP. That’s compared to 15 percent of the white families the organization serves.
In many cases, those who receive aid from their local food banks are immigrants who don’t have the language skills to get a good job or have a non-citizen status that excludes them from receiving benefits, Stampas says.
“An immigrant status can mean no access to food support,” she adds. “A lot of people come to the country to work but jobs available to them as non-citizens are not necessarily the best paying jobs and a low wage job doesn’t get you very far in places like New York.”
That’s where the efforts of local food banks and other services come in.
“We try to identify some of the black churches and partner with them,” says Mayhue-Greer, who manages a large portion of the food programs available in Mississippi — a state that is home to Holmes County, which has the highest food insecurity rate of any county in the country.
Still, Mayhue-Greer says they have not received the support they originally hoped to from partnering with some of the states’ predominately black churches.
“Some of the black churches don’t have a mission focused to this cause,” she says. “Some say that they just don’t have the time to do it or their church is too small to dedicate the necessary resources.”
The affects of food insecurity on children
Fraser says Feeding America’s mission is to feed hungry people – who run the gamut of those who are homeless and have no income and no home to those who have recently become unemployed.
“90 percent of the people we serve are not homeless,” he says, explaining that there is a greater number of people using food banks who are working and are dependent on food banks.
These are individuals who have lost their jobs and don’t have the necessary expendable income to purchase foods to live a healthy, active lifestyle.
In many cases, the children in these families depend on school meals for nourishment.
“There are children who look forward to a snow day for a day off from school and then there are some children who are sad because that snow day means they can’t eat,” Mayhue-Greer says.
Research shows that nearly 32 percent of African-American children live in food insecure households compared to 16 percent of white children. On a broader scale, additional data shows that children are at risk of hunger in every state and every county in the United States.
Meanwhile, 23 percent of the families enrolled in SNAP are African-American, versus 37 percent who are white.
But because of African-Americans’ smaller population share, that means more black than white families rely on food assistance. And a 2009 report by the Archives of Pediatric and adolescent Medicine estimated that more than half of all American children will receive SNAP benefits at some point before age 20, but among African-American children, that figure rose to 90 percent.
“It’s important to know that in a lot of households there are children and these are children who, during the summertime, have parents who don’t really know how to feed them because they have to make tough choices between paying rent, utilities and buying food,” Mayhue-Greer adds.
A mission to eliminate ‘food deserts’
Although data shows a continual rise in the number of those who are food insecure, Fraser says that it is not only important to help make food more available to those in need but to also ensure that the food given provides the proper health and nutrition.
“We’re trying to change the conversation from getting food to hungry people to getting meals,” he says.
These are meals and food items where the salt content and nutritional values are monitored and distributed, he says – making sure that the risk for things like childhood obesity, strokes and diabetes are considered.
“Hunger is a health issue because we see it every day within our community, diabetes and high blood pressure are big factors and it’s something we have to address primarily in the African-American community,” Mayhue-Greer says.
There are over 200 food banks and food service programs associated with Feeding America, all of whom share the mission of eliminating food deserts in both rural and urban areas and providing healthy and sustainable food to those in need.
While the data shows that African-Americans are at high risk of becoming food insecure, Fraser says the organization — and those like it – are doing all they can to provide the necessary aid by sparking national awareness and advocating for government programs that provide these resources.
“I have traveled to over 100 countries to meet and understand the needs of hungry people, and I have spent the last decade tackling global food insecurity. But until recently, I had always believed the United States’ social safety net meant hunger did not exist in this country, ” says Howard Buffett, president of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
“It took a number of eye-opening visits to local food banks and many conversations with people struggling to find their next meal to understand that hunger in America is a very real problem.”
This report was produced as part of a collaboration with InPlainSight.nbcnews.com, TheGrio.com, NBCLatino.com, msnbc.com, and NBC’s owned television stations
Follow Lilly Workneh @Lilly_Works