8 Food Insecurity during COVID-19 in a Canadian Academic Pediatric Hospital
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Primary Subject area Social Paediatrics Background There are concerns of increased food insecurity rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no evidence to date about families with children with an acute or chronic illness. Parents with a child admitted to the hospital may also experience hospital-based food insecurity, defined as the inability of caregivers to afford adequate food during their child’s hospitalization. Objectives We aimed to measure the prevalence of household and hospital-based food insecurity in an academic pediatric hospital setting during the COVD-19 pandemic. We also explored the effects of food insecurity on parental distress and overall caregivers’ experiences obtaining food during their hospital stay. Design/Methods This was a cross-sectional study from April to October 2020. Household food insecurity was measured using the 18-item U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module. Three adapted questions about hospital-based food insecurity were added. Parental distress was measured with the validated Distress Thermometer for Parents: “0” indicates “no distress” and “10” indicates “extreme distress”. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the proportions of food insecurity. Linear regression models were used to explore the relationship between food insecurity and parental distress adjusted for potential confounders. To explore caregivers’ experiences we included one open-ended question in our survey, asking: “Do you have any other feedback regarding your food situation during your child’s hospital admission?”. Recurrent themes were identified using qualitative analysis. Results 851 families were reached by telephone and 775 (91.0%) provided consent to participate. 435 (56.1%) completed at least one questionnaire [Figure 1 Study Flow Diagram]. Caregivers described a high prevalence of household (34.2%) and hospital-based (38.0%) food insecurity. Both adult (B= 0.21 [95% CI 0.07-0.36]), child (B= 0.38 [95% CI 0.10-0.66]) and hospital-based (B= 0.56 [95% CI 0.30-0.83]) food insecurity were significantly associated with parental distress independent of covariates [Table]. In the qualitative analysis, the financial burden and emotional and practical barriers obtaining food in the hospital were identified as important themes. Parents also commented that they “need to eat to be able to take part in the care of their child during hospitalization”. Conclusion Both household and hospital-based food insecurity were highly prevalent in caregivers and significantly associated with parental distress, independent of covariates. High parental distress is known to be associated with a child’s maladjustment to illness and adherence with medical treatment. Hospitals need to strongly consider reducing barriers for parents to obtain food for themselves during their child’s admission in order to reduce parental distress.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".