The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our lives in ways beyond what we could have imagined.  The disruption of essential elements of life, such as food, water, money, and housing, has been devastating to families and communities, particularly those most vulnerable. While some of the impact on the unavailability of food, for instance, has been due to the pandemic, the inequalities that pre-existed the crisis have persisted.

Amit Sharma, professor and associate director of the School of Hospitality Management and director of the Food Decisions Research Laboratory, and Kimberly Impellitteri, research project coordinator in the Food Decisions Research Laboratory, along with colleagues in the School of Hospitality Management, Penn State Center Philadelphia, and their international research task force, are investigating the issues surrounding food access and insecurity locally and globally.

The research team also includes a group of undergraduate and graduate students at Penn State, whose efforts have morphed into research, outreach, and educational activities reflecting on the complex perspectives overlapping the food insecurity phenomenon.

Read more about the project in this post.

For more on food insecurity and other issues during the pandemic, visit the Insights from Experts website — a partnership of Penn State's Social Science Research Institute and the Center for Health Care and Policy Research.