Restricted opportunities, unfortunate personal choices, ineffective policies? What explains food insecurity in Oregon

As the extent of household food insecurity in the US has become better understood, policymakers at the federal and state levels have sought to learn more about the multiple causes of food insecurity. Some have sought the explanation in the personal choices about marriage, child bearing, education and other life choices that people make that increase the vulnerability of a household. Other look to the economic and social context in which individuals and households make their choices: the availability of jobs, local wage levels, costs of living and availability of social supports. Still others seek the causes in governmental and nongovernmental institutional responses to economic distress. This study attempts to untangle the multiple sources of food insecurity by examining the roles of household demographics, local economic and social conditions and federal food security programs in explaining the likelihood of household food insecurity in Oregon, the state with the highest hunger rate in the nation in four of the last five assessments. We believe this is the first study that has examined the role of local (county-level) contextual factors in explaining food insecurity