Food Access and Security

What is food access?
Food access exists when individuals have adequate resources for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.

What is food security?
Food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious foods.

What is nutrition security?
Nutrition security requires access to adequate and appropriate healthcare services, along with a diet that meets the nutritional needs for a healthy and active life. Cultural relevance of food is also an important aspect of nutrition security.

Food insecurity is defined by the USDA as the lack of consistent access to enough food for a healthy and active life. Food insecurity is rooted in poverty and economic upheaval. Rhode Island’s rate of food insecurity was the highest in New England in the early 2000s. It then decreased, before spiking due to the Great Recession (December 2007-June 2009). The prevalence of food insecurity in Rhode Island did not decrease until after 2012. The COVID pandemic then sharply increased food insecurity in the region. Note that USDA estimates for states represent 3-year averages (e.g., 2019-2021, 2020-2022).

An average of 11.6% (over 35,000 households) of Rhode Island households were food insecure from 2001 to 2023. An average of 7.3% of food insecure households had “low food security,” which is defined as an experience of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. An average of 4.3% had “very low food security,” which is defined as an experience of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake. Food insecurity increased in Rhode Island as a result of the Great Recession and slowly decreased over the course of several years. A major increase in safety net resources are believed to have buffered the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity. However, some data sources are now showing an increase in food insecurity in 2022 and 2023 as some of the COVID-19 safety net resources are no longer in place.

The percent of Rhode Islanders in poverty gradually increased from 2001 to 2009. Poverty then jumped several percentage points due to the Great Recession and lingered at over 14% for six years. Poverty then decreased from 2014 to 2019, although it did not go below the percentage in 2001. The COVID-19 pandemic then spiked the percent of Rhode Islanders in poverty to 12.1% (126,971 people), before decreasing to 11.4% (124,944 people) in 2023. Food insecurity in Rhode Island mirrors poverty trends and has recently increased.

The USDA identifies “low income/low access” (LILA) census tracts where a large proportion of the residents have low-incomes and are more than 1/2 mile from a food source for urban populations, and over 10 miles for rural populations. About 26% (64 out of 244) of census tracts in Rhode Island were deemed to be low income/low access.

Social and commercial determinants also set the stage for lifelong disparities in food access by race/ethnicity and income. Sorting these low income/low access census tracts by race and Hispanic ethnicity, we find a strong correlation between the percentage of residents who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or other people of color and low income/low access. Hispanic/Latino, Black, Asian, Indigenous, and Rhode Islanders of two or more races or some “other” race—make up 31.3% of the state’s population, but 53.0% of its population living in low-income low- access census tracts.

The primary Federal program designed to ensure food security is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The number of Rhode Island residents receiving SNAP benefits more than doubled during the Great Recession, and has not come down to previous levels since.

Providence County, where most of the state’s population lives, has the largest number of SNAP recipients.

Low wages ripple throughout society as food system workers are disproportionately impacted by food and nutrition insecurity. From 2019 to 2023, an average of 16.3% (68,111) of Rhode Island households received Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to augment their grocery budgets. White Rhode Islanders make up the majority of the state’s population (68.7%) and, consequently, the largest number of SNAP recipients in Rhode Island were White. But only 9.6% of White households received SNAP benefits.

In contrast:

• Hispanic Rhode Islanders make up 16.6% of the state’s population and 32.8% of Hispanic households received SNAP benefits.
• Black Rhode Islanders make up 5.0% of the state’s population and 26.4% of Black house-holds received SNAP benefits.
• Indigenous Rhode Islanders make up 0.3% of the state’s population and 35.7% of Indigenous households received SNAP benefits.

From 2001 to 2019, more than 76,000 students per year participated in the National School Lunch Program, a low-cost or free lunch program for qualifying students. This translated to an average of 13.5 million meals served during each school year. Participation dramatically decreased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When schools closed during the pandemic, school lunches were served under the Summer Food Service Program which allowed for a “grab and go” style of distribution.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides food, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and other postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be at nutritional risk. The program serves about half of all infants born in the U.S.

In Rhode Island about 18,000 people participated in the program in 2024, down from 19,500 in 2017. Reduced enrollment in Rhode Island is consistent with national trends.

The Rhode Island Community Food Bank is the largest emergency food distributor in the state. An average of 67,000 RI residents were served every month by the charitable food system over the past 5 years, including a spike in need at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a dip in 2021 while many emergency COVID-19 response programs were in operation, and another ongoing spike since 2022 likely due to inflation and the elimination of many COVID-19 response programs.

Many other individuals are served by programs outside of the RI Community Food Bank network organizations.