Black-white Racial Disparities in Household Food Insecurity from 2005-2014, Canada

Abstract

Background: Household food insecurity is a public health concern in many high-income countries. Despite two decades of research charting the socio-demographic and geographic correlates of food insecurity in Canada, the relationship between race and vulnerability to food insecurity has not been interrogated. Our objectives were to examine the association of Black-White racial identity and prevalence and severity of household food insecurity in Canada, and understand how racialized vulnerability manifests differently for key sociodemographic predictors. Methods: Data for households with Black and White respondents with complete data on household food insecurity were drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey cycles from 2005-2014 (N=491,400). Household food insecurity status was assessed using the Household Food Security Survey Module. Bivariate and multivariate logistic and multinomial regression models were run, including respondent’s race and immigration status, as well as six well-established household-level predictors of food insecurity in the general population: household composition, income, housing tenure, highest level of education in the household, main household income source, and province/territory. To test whether the relationship between food insecurity and these predictors differed by race, additional multivariable logistic regression models were run, with race interacted with each predictor individually and predicted probabilities estimated.Results: The weighted prevalence of household food insecurity was 10.0% for white respondents and 28.4% for Black respondents. The odds of Black households being food-insecure compared to white households fell from 3.56 (95% CI: 3.30-3.85), to 1.88 (95% CI: 1.70-2.08) with adjustment for household sociodemographic characteristics. In contrast to white households, there was relative homogeneity of risk of food insecurity among Black sub-groups defined by immigration status, household composition, education, and province of residence. Homeownership was associated with lower probabilities of food insecurity for Black and white households, but the probability among Black owners was similar to that for white renters (14.7% vs. 14.3%). Black households had significantly higher predicted probabilities of food insecurity than their white counterparts across all main sources of household income except child benefits and social assistance.Conclusions: Being racialized as Black appears to be an overriding factor predicting vulnerability to food insecurity for the Black population in Canada.

The Challenge of Exposing and Ending Health Inequalities through Social and Policy Change: Canadian Experiences

“…Furthermore, Canada's food insecurity level for blacks is three times higher than for whites, 100 partly because people of color generally earn 30% less income, and their poverty rate is twice that of the white ethnicity. 101 Racism is entrenched in the Canadian labor market.…”