Abstract:
Food insecurity is a growing public health problem in the United States. While national food aid
programs have made strides to combat food insecurity, research is needed that focuses on the
effectiveness of regional programs, particularly because success rates of these programs vary.
The current study analyzed thirty local food aid programs in the United States and assessed their
impact on reducing food insecurity. Findings suggest that these programs are more effective in
reducing food insecurity when they tackle local contextual factors, thus pointing to the
importance of anthropological approaches in food aid programs. Based on the programs that had
effective intervention methods, applications of these methods were applied to food programs and
reducing food insecurity in Delaware County. The use of anthropological approaches in reducing
food insecurity can be used throughout the United States to understand how food insecurity
influences all the factors of a person’s environment.
