Emergency Food Support Preference and Usage During COVID-19: A Neighborhood Study of Low-Income Black Mothers? Use of School-Based Food Distribution and P-EBT

Abstract

COVID-19 disrupted families’ food supply. Based on in-depth interviews with 45 Black low-income mothers of young children in an underserved Houston, Texas, neighborhood from April 2020 to June 2021, we compared two aid programs—Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer cash assistance and in-kind food distributions. We found that mothers preferred cash assistance for boosting existing food strategies, while food distributions presented new challenges for already burdened families. We argue that food assistance interventions can be more successful and equitable by integrating service user context, needs, and preferences. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(S3):S227–S230. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307458 )