Good Friends and Good Neighbors: Social Capital and Food Insecurity in Families with Newborns

To examine the association between social capital and household food insecurity among US families with newborns.

This cross-sectional analysis used enrollment data from 881 newborn-caregiver dyads at 6 geographically-diverse US academic sites enrolled in the Greenlight Plus Trial, a comparative effectiveness trial to prevent childhood obesity. Ordinal proportional-odds models were used to characterize the associations of 2 self-reported measures of social capital: (1) caregiver social support and (2) neighborhood social cohesion, with household food insecurity after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.

Among 881 newborn-caregiver dyads (49% Hispanic, 23% non-Hispanic White, 17% non-Hispanic Black; 49% with annual household income <$50 000), food security was high for 75%, marginal for 9%, low for 11% and very low for 4%. In covariate-adjusted analyses, caregivers with a low social support score of 18 had 5 times the odds (aOR = 5.03 95% CI = 3.28-7.74) of greater food insecurity compared with caregivers with a high social support score of 30. Caregivers with a low neighborhood social cohesion score of 10 had nearly 3 times the odds (aOR = 2.87 95% CI 1.61-5.11) of greater food insecurity compared with caregivers with a high neighborhood social cohesion score of 20. These associations remained robust when both social capital measures were included in one model.

Caregiver social support and neighborhood social cohesion each appear to be inversely associated with food insecurity among US families with newborns. Longitudinal research is needed to determine the directionality of these relationships and whether improving social capital for families with young children reduces household food insecurity.