Complex Food Insecurity Context Experienced by Households That Include People with Intellectual and Developmental...

Food security among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and households that include a person with IDD is an understudied area. We conducted in-depth interviews with 22 low-income food insecure adults with IDD and family members of children with IDD who resided in the U.S. during late 2024 and early 2025 to develop a thorough understanding of their household food security context The four members of the research team used a rapid deductive approach to code the interview transcripts. Coding agreement was assured by having all four members code a small set of initial interviews and refining the codebook until coding agreement was moderate or strong among all coders. Each coder then conducted independent coding on a set of interviews. The study results show that low-income households that include a person with IDD often struggle to access the food necessary for their households due to a complex interaction of dietary requirements, economic factors, food acquisition challenges, limitations in the ability to prepare healthy foods, and barriers to accessing public and community-based nutrition assistance programs. To improve food security for low-income households that include a person with IDD will therefore require strategies that go beyond traditional approaches of providing in-kind assistance to purchase food or free food to consider what changes to environmental factors or policies and practices are needed.