Novel screening intervention to address food insecurity in hospitalized children.

Abstract

Despite efforts to standardize and optimize screening of hospitalized children for food insecurity, rates of identified food insecurity (4.1%) remained far below the known community rate (18.3%-23.3%). We aimed to improve identification of food insecure families through a novel screening method, utilizing a nonclinical screener at a time uncoupled from admission. The positive food insecurity rate resulting from this screen closely approximated the community rate (18.1%). In addition, the novel screening method better identified Spanish speaking and Latino/Hispanic families with food insecurity, highlighting a disparity in the standard screening process.