Associations Between Food Insecurity and Neighborhood Safety, Social Cohesion, Social Control, and Crime Among Mothers of Preschool-Aged Children

Poverty is a significant problem among children in the United States. In 2019, 15.4% of young children (¹ Impoverished children are susceptible to many adverse long-term health outcomes, including poor physical and mental health, socioemotional development, and educational achievement², and are more likely to engage in risky health behaviors.³ Black, Hispanic, and Native American young children are disproportionately affected, with 28.8%, 21.8%, and 26.9% living in poverty, respectively.¹ Further, Black and Hispanic children, and children living in households that are headed by single mothers or caregivers with lower educational attainment, are disproportionately affected by food insecurity.^4,5 Children living in food-insecure households are more likely than other children to experience higher rates of chronic disease,⁶ poorer mental health^7–9 and emotional well-being,¹⁰ and worse academic performance⁹ and developmental outcomes¹¹ from early childhood to adulthood.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic increase in food insecurity among families with children, especially low-income families identifying as Black/African American and/or Hispanic/Latinx.^12,13 According to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 15% of households with children reported being food-insecure at some point during the first year of the pandemic,¹⁴ compared with 6.5% in 2019.¹⁵ In addition, a recent study showed that individuals who were unemployed, had less education, and had lower income had higher odds of reporting food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic (from February to April 2020),¹⁶ and these associations were stronger among households with children than others.¹⁶ It is therefore particularly timely to examine characteristics that may be associated with food insecurity. While there are many studies of the relationships between individual or household-level factors and food insecurity,^17–20 there are fewer studies that examine factors in the neighborhoodlevel environment that are associated with food insecurity.^21,22

The neighborhood social environment has previously been studied as an important context for health conditions and behaviors such as obesity,²³ sleep,²⁴ stress,²⁵ and depression.²⁶ The neighborhood social environment comprises relationships and social processes among neighborhood residents and includes structural factors such as perceived safety, neighborhood crime rates, and neighborhood collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is defined as the combination of social cohesion and informal...