Household Food Insecurity and Academic Performance: Results From the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 44.085 - Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: 44.085-8 - Early Education and Child Development SIG Poster Session

Abstract

15.3 million U.S. children lived in food insecure households in 2014 (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2015). Food insecurity has been associated with adverse developmental outcomes for children. We used the latest Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (2010-2011) to investigate how food insecurity affects kindergarteners’ reading and mathematics performance. The analyses demonstrated that children from food insecure household score lower in both math and reading. Moreover, results from Hierarchical Linear Models showed that as the severity of food insecurity increases, there exists corresponding decrease in both math and reading. Also, Food insecurity affect children constantly across different schools. This study provides strong empirical evidence to date that food insecurity is predictive of poor developmental trajectories in young children.

Authors

• Yanmiao Xie, Unniversity of Delaware

• Meng Fan, Human Resources Research Organization