Evaluation of “Child Hunger Ends Here”: A community-based hunger initiative in Metro Omaha

INTRODUCTION: Policy and environmental interventions have more recently been implemented to address food insecurity, yet the percentage of households categorized as very low food security remains unchanged. A new three-year community initiative in Metro Omaha aims to address hunger, and improve food sufficiency and food security by combining efforts of multiple programs, including intervening at three food pantries, a food bank, a large public school district, and a financial/budgeting program. We will describe the collective outcomes and associations with food sufficiency and food security for the first year of the initiative.

APPROACH: Participants are currently being recruited to complete a survey in four metro libraries (anticipated n=500). Descriptive analyses will be used to examine sociodemographics and outcome variables. Specifically, we will assess associations among sociodemographics, household food security, food sufficiency, home environment, hunger-coping, psychosocial variables, and dietary patterns. Multivariable logistic and linear regression analyses will be performed to examine independent predictors of outcome measures, adjusting for covariates.

RESULTS: Overall results from the first year of the initiative will be presented along with lessons learned about community partnership.

DISCUSSION: Interventions addressing food sufficiency and food security are warranted.  This evaluation can provide preliminary data on the effectiveness of a large-scale community-based hunger initiative. This study has the potential to inform work in other communities with regard to stakeholder alignment and collective impact.