Public Reports

Our firm developed new hunger totals statewide through a granular analysis of over 11,400 hyper-local areas across Florida. The work was sponsored by Feeding Florida at the behest of its extremely capable Executive Director, Robin Safley. This is our THIRD statewide update across Florida. The report below provides a comparison of three time periods: pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, and post-pandemic. Also, check out the special maps we developed with this new data for Leon County, home to Tallahassee, the state capital. The Map Compendium includes overlays of ZIP Code 32304, which is of great interest to local officials.

Are you a fan of data aggregated across ZIP Codes? We’re not.

Some studies predict missing meals across the US at the county level, but either they do not consider all households, or they do not net out everything. Local data is not used. And many organizations use ZIP Codes for data averaging on a wide range of other social factors. ZIP Codes are too large and can distort the true patterns of social conditions. Even if they provided accurate information, where in the ZIP Code do specific conditions of interest exist? This is not revealed and becomes a guessing game. Furthermore, ZIP Codes cross county boundaries. If a county department of public health, for example, were addressing health disparities with ZIP Code data where the ZIP crosses the county boundary, it is possible that the issue resides in the neighboring county.

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Florida MDM Update February 17, 2021
Leon County, Florida, 2021 Map Compendium

Lackawanna, PA, is lacking 8,704,878 meals per year because families cannot afford them. Lackawanna, PA, includes the city of Scranton, which is the birthplace of the sitting president of the United States of America, Joe Biden. Under the Biden Administration, attention and resources have been focused on the need for nutritious food as a key to quality and length of life. But more needs to be done. Did you know that – after netting out all other ways that households might acquire food, including government programs, food banks, and help from friends and family – we found that Lackawanna County is still sorely lacking enough healthful meals to meet the goal of three meals per day? How many meals? Our Meal Deficit Metric model – the first of its kind in the nation – has produced reliable, pinpointed evidence that 167,402 meals are missed each week. That results in 8,704,878 meals per year (12,186,830 pounds of missing and sorely needed food) for Lackawanna families. Our unique Meal Deficit Metric model calculates the unmet food gap at a very low geography after “netting out” (1) government food subsidies such as SNAP and free-or-reduced-price school meals, (2) charitable food provided through pantries and other organizations, and (3) all other ways that households might acquire food, including support from friends and relatives. As regular, nutritious meals are a bridge to a long and productive life, we encourage the Administration to consider including a more strategic approach to eliminating hunger by improving geographic access to healthy food (eliminating food deserts) and by improving financial access to healthy food (supporting households that have adequate access but insufficient resources to afford it).

Many programs already address these two issues, but are they effective? Are they using high-quality data and information? Is it pinpointed to where families actually live? Are programs bogged down by bureaucratic red tape?

Science and even our own lifeforce as human beings on earth is not static; it keeps moving and evolving. And all movements require a periodic refreshing of methods and action. They beg for a deeper understanding, for a closer look. And they require terminology and communication that is more accurate, enlightened, relatable, and direct. It is time for a refreshed defining of problems and solutions concerning geographic and financial access to healthy food. It is time to finally fix a broken food system.

Many food relief advocates across America use the term “food insecure” to (1) describe all SNAP-qualifying households (which is an income bracket adjusted for household size) as (2) the population that experiences hunger. In our view, this is problematic for many reasons. In our work, we avoid the labels “food insecure” and “food insecurity” and instead use “net missing meals” and “net meal deficit” as more accurate and specific descriptions. For a deeper explanation, view our Wilcox County (Alabama) report or our Ashtabula County (Ohio) report and search for the section New Terminology.

Persistent hunger in the land of plenty is a solvable dilemma. In many respects, “fighting” hunger has become big business, and the idea of winning and moving past the war might not be welcomed by everybody. Scientifically measuring the willpower of society to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, hunger is not a metric we can develop at our firm. Our aim here is to introduce suggestions for new ways of thinking about hunger, new ways of measuring and understanding hunger, new openings for thoughtful discussions about hunger (in policy circles and around our own kitchen tables), and new and better ways to take meaningful action that is trackable, honest, and transparent. The first step is to get our measures and our language straight. And we are pairing this with reliable, actionable data. Again, to see an example of this type of analysis details about our new terminology and metrics, download from our website two of our latest SOLVE HUNGER research studies conducted at the request of InvestigateTV, which has been reporting on health disparities linked to diet-related disease in persistently vulnerable locations. The two studies are for Ashtabula County in Ohio and Wilcox County in Alabama. Regarding food deserts (geographic access), our firm authored Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago, a breakthrough study that popularized the term “Food Desert” nationally in 2006 and encouraged Congressman Bobby Rush to enter “Food Desert” language into the Farm Bill. In large part because of this work, millions of dollars have been invested in underserved areas across the country. Now, 15 years later, our concern is that the effort is not making enough of a measurable difference despite a considerable amount of taxpayer and foundation money being spent across America on so-called solutions.

Regarding hunger in Lackawanna, if the state of Pennsylvania set the goal of everyone obtaining three meals per day, and if all residents of Lackawanna shared the meal loss equally at one time without interruption, it would mean that no one in the county would eat a single meal for two straight weeks. How is this acceptable in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Where are our broad stripes and bright stars in this perilous fight?

Thankfully, there are many highly capable, active, and persistent individuals within organizations and also government agencies doing their best – doing some measurable good – within this broken system. Let us look for ways to support them. For example, there are two urgent problems with the current state of the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called Food Stamps): 1) standards are too low, and 2) many retailers are not in compliance with even those low standards. This is not the fault of the vast majority of the USDA staff, who have substantial expertise and commitment to these issues. They continue to push. But, it is Congress that must act to allocate resources to monitor program compliance. Ensuring that SNAP stores are and remain in compliance can be costly. One solution might be to channel compliance through local health departments that regularly inspect, fine, and license food stores. Perhaps these local authorities can set some aspect of compliance parameters, tempering concerns about federal control of local purchasing. Local leaders are the ones on the ground with the most knowledge about local healthy food infrastructure.

We encourage the Biden Administration to include healthy food infrastructure in its Infrastructure Bill and to engage local agency and organizational leaders in developing practical solutions.

Local leaders in Pennsylvania’s capital, Philadelphia, played a central, historic role in creating and adopting America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776, which gave us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And even today, one of Pennsylvania’s current state slogans is Pursue Your Happiness. But this is difficult in communities devoid of healthy food infrastructure. How can we pursue our happiness without the fuel of regular meals?

We are a neutral third-party firm and wholly owned female business enterprise that does not engage in politics, political campaigns, or lobbying. The one single thing we “advocate” for is evidence-based data and information to direct policies and limited resources that improve quality and length of life for all and underscore the value of human existence.

Regarding Lackawanna, in addition to the county total now made public, we have already generated reliable hunger scores (the number of net missing meals, accounting for ALL other ways households might acquire food) for the 181 pinpointed areas that cover every inch of Lackawanna County. Stay tuned…

Our research found that 4,667,220 meals per year are missed in this relatively small county of just under 100,000 residents because families cannot afford them. The most northeastern county in Ohio is Ashtabula, a name that translates in the “Delaware languages” once spoken by indigenous peoples to “always enough fish to go around, to be given away.” But there is not enough fish or other healthy foods available today for those Ashtabula residents experiencing hunger.

Hunger has been an issue in parts of Ohio and elsewhere for decades. What will it take to finally solve generational hunger as well as newer, mostly undocumented hunger among the many households that struggle to put food on the table?

Imagine pairing the spirit of the name “Ashtabula” (food for all) with reliable, pinpointed data and the willpower to fix a broken system. With these forces working together, the provision of regular, nutritious meals could generate the momentum to attract new resources and more strategic and efficient use of existing ones. Thus, the name Ashtabula might then encode yet another definition: Solving hunger is possible.

Accounting for all food subsidies, food bank support, and help from friends and family, Ashtabula County residents miss a total of 4,667,220 (rounded) meals per year because they cannot afford them. This is a serious quality of life and quality of health problem. If the state of Ohio set the goal of everyone obtaining three meals per day, and if all residents of Ashtabula shared the meal loss equally at one time without interruption, it would mean that no one in the County would eat a single meal for two straight weeks. Hunger is solvable, and we are hopeful that local, statewide, and national leaders will use the data and tools in this report to take meaningful and focused action. And now Ashtabula has the data and mapping tools to begin to make that happen.

This SOLVE HUNGER report and map compendium are part of a special research project for Gray Television InvestigateTV.

InvestigateTV is Gray Television’s national investigative team, which reports on issues of concern, corruption, greed, mismanagement, and fraud for digital, streaming, and broadcast audiences across the United States.

Gray Television is a television broadcast company headquartered in Atlanta, GA. Gray currently owns and/or operates television stations and leading digital properties in 94 television markets that collectively reach approximately 24% of US television households.

Learn more at InvestigateTV.com.

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Ashtabula Solve Hunger Research Project
Ashtabula Map Appendix

Our research found that 686,000 meals per year are missed in this small rural county of 11,000 residents because families cannot afford them. Most Americans who know at least the basics of both history and geography are aware that Montgomery is not only the state capital of Alabama but also both the final destination of the historic “Selma-to-Montgomery Marches” and the site of Dr. King’s famous “How Long, Not Long” speech. But probably few – even of those living across Alabama itself – are aware that just an hour’s drive to the southwest of the capital is a small, rural county called Wilcox, where many residents go hungry because they cannot afford the food they need. Hunger has been an urgent issue in Alabama and elsewhere for decades. How long will it take to finally solve generational hunger as well as the newer, mostly undocumented hunger among the many households that struggle to regularly eat nutritious meals? In theory, not long, provided local officials and organizations possess two things: reliable, pinpointed data and the willpower to fix a broken system. With these in hand, regular, nutritious meals could be provided in ways that generate the momentum to attract new resources and to use existing ones more strategically and efficiently. This critical information is now publicly available for Wilcox County for hyper local areas.

Accounting for all food subsidies, food bank support, and help from friends and family, Wilcox County residents miss a total of 686,000 (rounded) meals per year because they cannot afford them. This is a serious quality of life and quality of health problem. If the state of Alabama set the goal of everyone obtaining three meals per day, and if all residents of Wilcox shared the meal loss equally at one time without interruption, it would mean that no one in the County would eat a single meal for three straight weeks. Hunger is solvable, and we are hopeful that local, statewide, and national leaders will use the data and tools in this report to take meaningful and focused action.

This SOLVE HUNGER report and map compendium are part of a special research project for Gray Television InvestigateTV.

InvestigateTV is Gray Television’s national investigative team, which reports on issues of concern, corruption, greed, mismanagement, and fraud for digital, streaming, and broadcast audiences across the United States.

Gray Television is a television broadcast company headquartered in Atlanta, GA. Gray currently owns and/or operates television stations and leading digital properties in 94 television markets that collectively reach approximately 24% of US television households.

Learn more at InvestigateTV.com.

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Wilcox Solve Hunger Research Project
Wilcox County Map Appendix

Feeding Florida commissioned Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group (MG) – a firm with expertise in hunger, the economy, and statistical models – to conduct a COVID-19 employment disruption analysis at small geographic units across Florida as a pathway to understand and address the additional need for charitable feeding during this crisis. The analysis estimates how many additional workers have or soon will become unemployed or furloughed without pay as a result of the pandemic. Results are pinpointed for over 11,400 hyper-local areas across Florida. Additionally, Feeding Florida commissioned an update of MG’s Meal Deficit Metric model to account for the employment disruption of COVID-19, also at these same small, pinpointed areas.

Watch our website for more information: maps for every county and a Florida-wide Excel spreadsheet to be released soon. The original Meal Deficit Metric results are also available on our Projects/Public Reports page.

This work would not be possible without the support and leadership of Feeding Florida. We thank Feeding Florida, especially its Executive Director, Robin Safley, who has been tireless in her disaster relief efforts and her commitment to use evidence-based information to identify and help those in need. Her insights and feedback have been enormously helpful. Learn more about Feeding Florida here. We also thank and acknowledge Feeding Florida’s Board Chair, Sandra Frank (All Faiths Food Bank), and its Vice Chair, Richard LeBer (Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida), for also providing valuable feedback and encouragement at critical junctures. Finally, our analysis benefited from recent employment analyses by other research organizations, specifically the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the National Bureau of Economic Research. We thank them for their efforts.

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May 7 2020 FINAL FL Employment Disruption & MDM Analysis

MG created HIGH-RESOLUTION maps for every Florida county. Maps detail employment disruption, missing meals resulting from COVID-19, total pre- and post-pandemic missing meals, and other conditions. Maps are large in file size, and each viewer’s display quality depends on the PDF software used for viewing. Older PDF software might take longer to load. Should a page appear incomplete or show a line running through it, simply use your mouse to click on that page, and it should reformat. Or exit out of the map and re-open it again. Again, these maps are designed to be viewed on a computer. Viewing by phone or another small device will likely result in difficulties. ALSO DOWNLOAD THE FLORIDA MAP GUIDE below for more information.

View and Download HIGH RESOLUTION maps for every Florida county.

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Florida Map Guide

Imagine dividing the state of Florida into more than 11,400 small pieces and statistically predicting “hunger totals” for each one. This is exactly what The Meal Deficit Metric Project accomplishes across Florida. The Meal Deficit Metric (MDM) is a unique model developed by Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group and commissioned by Feeding Florida, the premier statewide association of food banks. The MDM accounts for all households regardless of income, all government food subsidies, all food bank support, and all help from friends and family. The number of net missing meals in Florida is 880 million per year, much higher than previously reported. If the Meal Deficit burden was distributed equally across the state, the yearly total would be equivalent to each man, woman, and child in Florida missing 41 meals per year. If all the meals were missed at one time, this would mean every Floridian going for two straight weeks without any kind of food. The MDM takes the stereotypes and guesswork out of directing food relief to households in need.

Download the MDM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY here.

We are grateful to Feeding Florida, and especially its Executive Director, Robin Safley, for their game-changing leadership in using evidence-based information to quantify, pinpoint, and solve hunger. As a united, committed, and focused voice, Feeding Florida advocates for those who go hungry, and as an effective anti-hunger network, it provides food directly to families in need through their own facilities and through 2,300-plus local charitable agencies.

Learn more about Feeding Florida’s team and programs.

HIGH-RESOLUTION MAP APPENDIX

Do not reduce file size, as it will compromise quality. This very large file consists of a set of high-resolution maps, one for each Florida county, with the exception of Monroe County (two maps were required for clarity). Maps show the average household weekly Meal Deficit (the number of meals missed because people cannot afford them) at a granular level (block groups). The Meal Deficit Metric accounts for all Florida households, regardless of income, and nets out all ways that households might acquire food: government food subsidies (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP and subsidized school meals), local food banks and pantries, and even food support from family and friends (see Executive Summary for more details). These maps are designed to be viewed on a computer using a program that can read PDF files, not printed. The viewer can increase the “percentage shown” number (usually located at the top of the PDF) to enlarge features. Each viewer’s display quality depends on the PDF software used for viewing. Older PDF software might take longer to load. Should a page appear incomplete or show a line running through it, simply use your mouse to click on that page, and it should reformat.

Download the MAP APPENDIX here.

FEEDING FLORIDA FOOD BANK MEMBER FACT SHEETS

#1 All Faiths Food Bank #2 Second Harvest of the Big Bend, Inc. #3 Bread of the Mighty #4 Feeding Northeast Florida #5 Feeding South Florida #6 Feeding the Gulf Coast #7 First Step Food Bank #8 Florida Gateway Food Bank #9 Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida #10 Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida #11 Feeding Tampa Bay #12 Treasure Coast Food Bank

Mari Gallagher is the President of Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group. She authored Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago, a breakthrough study that popularized the term “Food Desert” nationally in 2006 and encouraged Congressman Bobby Rush to enter “Food Desert” language into the Farm Bill. In large part because of Mari’s work, millions of dollars have been invested in underserved areas across the country. Her firm has conducted similar studies all around the country. Watch her TED talk and learn more.

Commissioner Adam Putnam of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has made these issues multi-year priorities and all of us at MG are thrilled to support their innovative efforts, which include online data and mapping tools. Additionally, our 2014 analysis of the relationship between food access and diet-related deaths across Florida is now available to the public. Learn how increasing healthy food availability in low-access communities by just one single percentage point could improve the overall health of 1.2 million urban and 780,000 rural Floridians and prevent nearly 650 premature deaths over a seven-year period. Now, in 2015, the focus is to drill deeper into the data to encourage and track local community solutions.

To support this work, MG is conducting a more granular analysis of the food environment and its relationship to health outcomes. We are also conducting focus groups, listening sessions, a survey, and a statewide forum. Stay tuned for new releases.

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Florida_Full_Technical_Addendum_

MG had the pleasure of working closely with community leaders on a project sponsored by the Ottumwa Regional Legacy Foundation and the United Way of Wapello County to assess – block-by-block – the impact of the food environment on community health and on school children’s academic performance. We found statistically significant associations between distances to fringe and mainstream retailers and children’s height and adult weight, body mass index (BMI), and diabetes. We also found that living in a poor food environment is linked to lower grades and lower height of students K-12, and that the food environment had a stronger effect on these outcomes than did income.

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Wapello_Technical_Addendum
Wapello-presentation
Wapello_Key_Maps
Wapello_Executive_Summary
Wapello_Action_Plan_and_Resource_Compendium

The MG team has been supporting ProMedica, a locally managed, nonprofit healthcare organization serving northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Our work includes a block-by-block food-and-health study of Toledo, OH, to help ProMedica and its Ebeid Institute for Population Health identify a high-impact location for its nonprofit grocery store. We also have assisted ProMedica with its business plan and community engagement strategy. Learn more.

MG supported this cutting-edge community development corporation with a feasibility assessment of Bartlett Place, an innovative mixed-use residential and retail redevelopment project located on an approximately 8.59-acre brownfield site in Roxbury, MA. The project is moving along! Learn more.

MG regularly assists Harvest Co-op – a community-owned grocery store – with feasibility assessments for multiple sites in the larger Boston area. Harvest is committed to building a vibrant community and healthier world by selling natural and organic food and by educating and supporting its diverse membership base. If you would like more information, please email us.

In some communities, healthy food is hard to find. Learn how the lack of access to mainstream food options might be linked to obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases and conditions. Get the facts in our Community Fact Sheet!

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Food Desert and Food Balance Fact Sheet

MG has been supporting DM Group Associates with a feasibility assessment for an energy-efficient supermarket and a shopping center in Robbins, IL. The project would bring 200 jobs and fresh groceries to one of the poorest communities in Illinois. Stay tuned for more information.

MG conducted an extensive survey across six states on opinions and practices concerning the consumption of meat, particularly grass-fed beef. The project was part of a larger effort of WellSpring Management, which focuses on locally grown foods and overall environmental practices that protect and sustain the planet.

In many areas, the DC food environment presents a serious health and wellness challenge to the city’s most vulnerable residents. This was demonstrated through a block-level study assessing the impact of the local DC food environment on public health by Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group. The study found that 88% of the over 520 food retailers are unhealthy “fringe” food retailers; only 12% are “mainstream,” terms coined by MG. Nearly 200,000 residents live on blocks where the closest healthy food retailer is three times farther or more than the closest fringe food retailer, creating a condition called “Food Imbalance” that MG also coined. For these residents, we found large and statistically significant negative health impacts with all diet-related diseases, especially cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The most alarming finding, however, concerns newborns. With individual data, we controlled for gestational age and the mother’s income, residence, education, age, alcohol and tobacco use, prenatal care, and marital status. What do you think we found? Download the fact sheet for a quick read and the technical report for all the details.

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Fact Sheet
Full Technical Report
New Map (not in Report)
Report Regressions (in Excel format)

The April 18th Times article on recent studies examining the link between “food deserts” and childhood obesity leaves the impression that food access does not matter in combating this epidemic. Our firm popularized the term “food desert” in the US with the release of Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago (2006). We found strong relationships between the inaccessibility of nutritious food options and two crucial negative health outcomes: higher body mass index — a proxy for obesity — and an increased incidence of premature death by diabetes. We found similar results in other cities, as have many other researchers. The article gave an unbalanced portrait of the evidence to date, even failing to note the limitations noted by the authors of the studies described. Our issue is not with the two new studies; we thank the authors for their valuable contributions. Our issue is the reporter’s sloppy job of getting the facts straight. Some of this could have been settled by some simple Google searches. She muddied the water at best, misled at worst, and left the inaccurate impression that food access and the concept of food deserts do not matter. Does plopping down a grocery store instantly solve the obesity problem? No, but it’s a step in the right direction. Download the full PDF to get all the details.

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MG RESPONSE_NYT_FOODDESERTS-OBESITY

The full Drilldown provides never-before-released data and tables detailing the Food Desert population, as well as maps featuring community names, street identifiers, and aldermanic ward numbers. It also includes SNAP redemption figures and a message from Mari Gallagher that addresses the need to enforce current SNAP standards and raise them in the next Farm Bill. You might find a few surprises. But the SNAP Addendum goes further. Its purpose is to help Chicago residents identify retail stores that are authorized to accept federal food assistance money and to determine whether these vendors are — or are not — providing sufficient healthful food options to their customers. It lists SNAP retailers within a half-mile radius of 15 high-profile locations around Chicago, including the homes of President Barack Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the district offices of U.S. Representative Bobby Rush and State Senator Jacqueline Collins. It also discusses how responsibility for problems with SNAP does not simply fall on the shoulders of USDA officials, whose resources to monitor the program have dwindled, and who must enforce compliance rules set by Congress that impose questionable nutritional standards. There is also an update on the aggressive campaign led by Yum! Brands (which owns KFC and Taco Bell) to enter the SNAP program and why it was defeated. The theme of the Addendum is “democratization of data” and the ability of communities to inventory and assess their own local food environments.

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Final 2011 Chicago FD Report
SNAP Addendum