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Record W4411003453 · doi:10.1186/s12889-025-23163-8

School food programs and food insecurity at the REACH school network: an observational study

2025· article· en· W4411003453 on OpenAlexaffabout
Jessica Omand, Youssef Elshaarawi, Saisujani Rasiah-Shaidev, Charles Keown‐Stoneman, Justine Cohen-Silver, Jonathon L. Maguire, Sloane Freeman

Bibliographic record

VenueBMC Public Health · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldHealth Professions
TopicFood Security and Health in Diverse Populations
Canadian institutionsSt Joseph's Health CentreSt. Michael's HospitalPublic Health OntarioUniversity of TorontoOntario Tobacco Research UnitWomen's College Hospital
Fundersnot available
KeywordsBiostatisticsMedicineObservational studyFood insecurityEnvironmental healthPublic healthEpidemiologyFood securityNursingEcology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity is common in Canada and impacts children more than any other age group. This study aimed to evaluate the association between participation in school food programs and food insecurity among students attending Canada's largest urban school-based health centre program, the REACH School Network. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional observational study from April 2022 to June 2024 at the REACH School Network. We administered the Growth and Nutrition Questionnaire to parents of children aged 3-17 years. Questions were related to dietary intake and participation in school food programs. Our primary outcome was food insecurity, using the Hunger Vital Sign. Logistic regression estimated the association between regular school food program participation and food insecurity, adjusting for covariates. RESULTS: Of 477 eligible participants, 316 consented (66.2% response rate), and 223 were included in the analysis. The mean age was 9.21 years (SD = 3.08); 69.1% identified as male. Overall, 134 (60.1%) regularly participated in a school food program. Food insecurity was reported by 97 (43.5%) participants, with similar prevalence among participants (44.8%) and non-participants (41.6%). Logistic regression, both unadjusted (OR = 1.14; 95% CI 0.66-1.97; P = 0.637) and adjusted (OR = 0.82; 95% CI 0.42-1.63; P = 0.579) found no significant association between school food program participation and food insecurity. CONCLUSION: Our study highlights the complex relationship between food insecurity and school food program participation among an at-risk, urban children. Future research is needed, with larger sample sizes and longitudinal designs to better understand these complex relationships.

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 imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.857
Threshold uncertainty score0.289

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.004
Science and technology studies0.0020.001
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

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.

Opus teacher head0.514
GPT teacher head0.502
Teacher spread0.012 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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