Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Experience of Food Insecurity in the Sociocultural Context

佛罗里达大学博士生道格拉斯A。门罗，由克拉伦斯C. Gravlee将对粮食不安全进行为期六个月的调查。在全球范围内，粮食不安全主要是由粮食短缺造成的，但在美国，即使粮食充足，也有一些人遭受粮食不安全。该项目将解决四个相关的探索性问题：（1）随着时间的推移，在经济资源、邻里环境和家庭组成方面各不相同的非洲裔美国人如何经历粮食不安全？(2)食物不安全是如何影响他们的饮食行为的？(3)什么样的社会、物质和宏观层面的力量影响粮食不安全？以及（4）哪些社会文化和环境因素将经历粮食不安全的非洲裔美国人与那些没有经历粮食不安全的非洲裔美国人区分开来？为了解决这些问题，Co-PI将招募随机选择的32名非裔美国人的子样本，参与更广泛的流行病学研究，并在六个月内进行一系列深入的人种学访谈。每隔两个月，Co-PI将访问受访者，了解他们的家庭和社区食品环境，食品不安全的经历，应对策略，并使用混合方法评估他们的饮食行为。通过在研究期间对每个受访者进行三次访谈，Co-PI将能够跟踪季节变化，并确定与粮食不安全相关的相应变量，将生态框架应用于粮食不安全研究，并侧重于粮食的社会文化层面，将有助于解释非洲裔美国人粮食安全状况的差异。研究结果将有助于将粮食不安全的经历与粮食不足区分开来，产生关于粮食不安全的原因和后果的新假设，并确定未来研究中应考虑的变量。塔拉哈西代表了一个对社区食品环境感兴趣的地方，因为它们与食品安全和营养健康有关。各种组织和社区学术伙伴关系，如塔拉哈西食品网络（TFN）和塔拉哈西健康公平联盟（HEAT），促进了可持续食品，城市园艺和更好的营养健康。通过传播其研究结果，该项目将改善历史上代表性不足的群体在粮食安全研究中的代表性，并增加学者、决策者和社区组织的科学知识，使他们能够推进其目标和活动。

University of Florida doctoral student Douglas A. Monroe, supervised by Dr. Clarence C. Gravlee, will undertake a six-month investigation of food insecurity. Globally, food insecurity is driven largely by food scarcity, but in the United States some people suffer from food insecurity even though food is abundant. The project will address four related exploratory questions: (1) How do African Americans who vary in terms of their economic resources, neighborhood context, and household composition experience food insecurity over time?; (2) in what ways does food insecurity mediate their dietary behaviors?; (3) what social, physical, and macro-level forces influence food insecurity?; and (4) what sociocultural and environmental factors distinguish African Americans who experience food insecurity from those who do not?To address these questions the Co-PI will recruit a sub-sample of 32 African Americans who were randomly selected to participate in a broader epidemiological study and conduct a series of in-depth ethnographic interviews over the course of six months. At two-month intervals the Co-PI will visit respondents and elicit information about their household and neighborhood food environments, experiences of food insecurity, coping strategies, and also assess their dietary behaviors using a mixed methods approach. By conducting three interviews with each respondent over the study period, the Co-PI will be able to track seasonal variation and identify the corresponding variables associated with food insecurity.Applying an ecological framework to the study of food insecurity and focusing on the sociocultural dimensions of food will help to explain differences in food security status among African Americans. The results will serve to disentangle the experience of food insecurity from food insufficiency, generate new hypotheses about the causes and consequences of food insecurity, and identify variables that should be considered in future research. Tallahassee represents a locale with substantial interest in neighborhood food environments as they relate to food security and nutritional health. Various organizations and community-academic partnerships such as the Tallahassee Food Network (TFN) and the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee (HEAT) have promoted sustainable food, urban gardening, and better nutritional health. Through the dissemination of its findings, this project will improve the representation of historical underrepresented groups in food security studies and increase the scientific knowledge of scholars, policymakers, and community organizations such that they can advance their goals and activities.