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L.A. County has a food insecurity rate of 25%, with Blacks and Latinos most affected
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Topline:
In L.A. County, 25% of households have struggled with food insecurity in the past year, a rate that is much higher than the national average, according to a new study. Blacks and Latinos are most affected. L.A. County also has a high 29% rate of nutrition insecurity.
Who is most affected: According to Kayla de la Haye, director of the Institute for Food System Equity at USC who put out the study, food insecurity rates are much higher for Latino and Black residents compared to their white counterparts. Food insecurity is assessed by how much money residents have for food.
The study also looked at “nutrition insecurity,” or whether people have access to and money for nutritious food.
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“One of the things that's surprising is that there are some folks who aren't food insecure, but who experience nutrition insecurity and those folks tend to be Asian residents in L.A. County,” said de la Haye. “There are folks who maybe don't feel like they struggle with having enough money for food, but they do feel like they struggle getting access to food that's good for their health and well being.”
Reasons for the high rates: One of the reasons Asian Americans have a high rate of 35% nutrition insecurity, de la Haye said, was because the community is so diverse.
“They come from so many different countries, including China, or the Philippines, or India, and they just have less access to grocery stores and places that sell affordable, culturally relevant foods,” she said.
One reason food insecurity rates are high, she added, is because of the high cost of living.
“We also have a high proportion of Latino and Black residents who historically have had less access to wealth, to neighborhood wealth, to access to food and grocery stores in their neighborhoods because of a lot of practices that are really underpinned by structural racism,” de la Haye said.
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