Food Pantry Usage During COVID-19 in Historically Redlined Cities; The Case of Cleveland Ohio

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic had significant negative impacts on food access for households across the United States. While literature abound regarding this impact, little is known about how this impact may vary between redlined and non-redlined areas.

Methods: We utilize food pantry visit data for 2019 and 2020 for all Greater Cleveland Food Bank partner pantries in Cuyahoga County (visits). Home addresses of food pantry patrons were geocoded and aggregated to the census tract to generate total families that visited the pantry in both years and the total number of visits for each census tract. We utilize hotspot analysis to identify patterns of pantry dependence in redlined and non-redlined tracts in Ohio

Results: Food pantry user households and visits increased by 14.5% and 33.8% respectively in Cuyahoga County between 2019 and 2020. In 2019, 46.9% of pantry user households and 47.0% of visits originated from the 31% historically redlined census tracts in the county. While pantry user households in redlined tracts increased by 6.5% between 2019 and 2020, users grew by almost 40% in non-redline tracts. additional, although hotspots of pantry users and visits in both years were predominantly in redline census tracts, higher changes during the pandemic were clustered in non-redline tracts

Discussion: Historically redlined areas remain under resourced needing to heavily rely on food pantries in both 2019 and 2020. Hotspot of increase pantry dependence in non-redlined census tracts however may be an indication of the widespread impact of COVID-19 on food insecurity.