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New Research at a Glance Brief: Screening for Food Insecurity in Suburban Primary Care Pediatric Practices

Food insecurity, or the lack of reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food, affects nearly 15.8 million children across the U.S. PolicyLab researcher Deepak Palakshappa, MD, MSHP, wanted to understand how food insecurity affects suburban families as rates of poverty in these communities have increased by 66 percent in the past decade. Therefore, he designed an intervention that screened families for food insecurity at six suburban primary care practices and assessed both family and provider perspectives on the feasibility and acceptability of the screens. The findings, published in two articles of Pediatrics, are featured in our new Research at a Glance: "Screening for Food Insecurity in Suburban Primary Care Pediatric Practices: Feasibility, Acceptability and Impact."