Working Paper: NBER ID: w9003
Authors: Jayanta Bhattacharya; Janet Currie; Steven Haider
Abstract: We examine the extent to which food insecurity questions and the standard poverty measure are correlated with various dietary and physiologic outcomes. Our findings suggest that the correlations vary tremendously by age. We find that the food insecurity questions are correlated with the dietary outcomes of older household members, but that they are not consistently related to the diets of children. In contrast, poverty predicts dietary outcomes among preschoolers. Among adults, both poverty and food insecurity questions are good predictors of many dietary outcomes.
Keywords: Food Insecurity; Poverty; Dietary Adequacy; Nutrition
JEL Codes: I32; I12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| food insecurity (I32) | dietary quality of older household members (I12) |
| poverty (I32) | dietary quality of preschoolers (I21) |
| food insecurity (I32) | dietary outcomes among adults (I12) |
| poverty (I32) | dietary outcomes among adults (I12) |
| age (J14) | dietary outcomes of children (I21) |