Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Social Support and Barriers of Food Insecure Seniors

• In Event: 067 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 04. Social Relationships, Support, and Carework across the Life Course

Abstract

Food insecurity is not a new phenomenon experienced by seniors living in the United States. In a recent report, approximately 5.4 million Americans over the age of 60 are food insecure, approximately 9% of the total senior population in the United States. This figure is projected to increase as the Baby Boomer population ages. The findings from this study call for major policy and funding implications. Through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, this study found that participants were extremely dependent on unreliable social ties, and therefore, agencies overestimated the seniors’ social support when determining the need of these seniors for home delivered meal services. This is problematic as this study shows that agencies do not ask enough questions regarding the social support of food insecure seniors to properly capture all of the issues older Americans are facing in trying to obtain food.

Authors

• Marie C. Gualtieri, North Carolina State University

• Amy Melissa Donley, University of Central Florida