Fiscal Year	2023
Division	Research & Sponsored Programs
Department	Naval Research Program
Investigator(s)	Heissel, Jennifer A.
Sponsor	NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary	The Navy understands the importance of caring for Sailors and their families to support the Navy mission. In November 2021, Defense Secretary Austin issued a memo to reiterate DoD commitment to the economic security of the Force. The memo included a directive for the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to define a strategy and implementation roadmap for strengthening food security for Service members. Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life per the Department of Agriculture. However, it is not obvious from available DoD data how widespread food insecurity is. We know a Sailor's income but not if they have enough food to be healthy per se ' or how food insecurity changes as the income, family structure, or geographic location of a Sailor changes. The study will explore ways that the Department of the Navy can define risk for food insecurity, from rough-cut measures ('income less than 130% of the poverty line') to detailed projections based on total income, available income, local food costs, local housing costs, and other measures. Risk rates may change over time, particularly given disruptions from COVID-19 and inflation. This research will examine how widespread risk of food insecurity is " and how that risk assessment depends on the measure. The project will define risk rates by service, geography, number of dependents, rank, and year, among others.
Keywords	food insecurity, extent, demographics
Publications	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal