Predicting county-level food insecurity and hunger in Oregon

Oregon’s high hunger and food insecurity rates have been a concern\ud throughout the last decade. These high rates earned Oregon the dubious distinction as\ud the most food insecure with hunger state in the late 1990’s. While Oregon’s ranking\ud has improved in recent years, our understanding of why Oregon ranked so highly on\ud such a distressing measurement is still being explored. Recent research has improved\ud our understanding of food insecurity and hunger through the identification of some\ud key socioeconomic conditions that correlate with increased likelihoods of household\ud food insecurity (Tapogna, Suter, Nord, and Leachman, 2004). These socioeconomic\ud conditions include: the rate of households that moved within a year, the state peak\ud unemployment rates, the state poverty rates, the rate of renters spending over half of\ud their income on rent, the state’s racial demographics, and the fraction of population\ud under 18 years old. This paper utilizes this state level model to evaluate whether\ud similar county-scaled socioeconomic conditions produce useful estimates of food\ud insecurity and hunger. To accomplish such an objective, this analysis: 1) assesses the\ud complexity in utilizing this state level model to predict county level food insecurity\ud and hunger rates, 2) constructs county estimates derived from the socioeconomic\ud model defined in Tapogna et al. (2004), and 3) assesses the county level estimates by\ud comparing the results with available region-and-county level data relevant to food\ud insecurity and hunger.\ud This examination is the first step in providing policymakers and county\ud administrators with a broad and useable predictive equation to estimate the severity of\ud food insecurity and hunger at the county level within Oregon