Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Since 1999, there has been a significant increase in the number of food insecure individuals in the United States. The Great Recession (2007-2009) and slow economic recovery has led to additional increases in rates of food insecurity and the usage of emergency food assistance programs. Thirty qualitative interviews with individuals seeking emergency food assistance at a Tampa Bay food pantry were conducted. Interviews focused on collecting the life experiences of participants, the barriers they face in having food security, their strategies to cope with limited food budgets, and how food insecurity impacts their household's overall health and wellbeing. Recommendations for fulfilling the immediate need for food as well as addressing the larger issues that lead to and perpetuate food insecurity and hunger are presented in this paper. In collaboration with the food pantry, a booklet presenting personal experiences of hunger alongside broad institutional forces affecting food insecurity was disseminated in the community in hopes of increasing awareness of and support for combating this important social issue.

This thesis investigates the affect of non-emergency food aid on producer prices and production quantities for cereal grains within the recipient country’s economy. The decision to evaluate developmental or non-emergency food aid (NEFA) stems from a lack of research on a macro scale of disaggregated food aid categories and their implications on developing country producers. The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region is the world’s largest recipient of direct transfer non-emergency food aid leaving the region most susceptible to the ambiguous affects of these food aid allocations. The results for this research suggests that not only are there no detectable disincentive effects but that there is little explanatory power from non-emergency food aid based on the 12 sample countries within the region. Additionally, an estimation of NEFA’s relationship with imports suggests that rather then an addition to total supply, the international trade composition is flexible.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (MSc)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

U.S. food banks emerged thirty years ago as part of a temporary, charitable food assistance safety net to address government welfare shortfalls. Over time their size and scope expanded significantly alongside growing food insecurity. As government entitlement programs continue to erode, the ensuing institutionalization of food banks secured their future. Yet scholars such as sociologist Janet Poppendieck argued over twenty years ago that these charitable programs inadvertently prevent the government from reassuming responsibility by providing the public the illusion of a solution despite their inability to adequately meet the need. This research argues that food bank advocacy can be used to reduce hunger and address its root cause—poverty. A case study analysis of the advocacy programs of the San Francisco-Marin and Alameda County Community Food Banks describes how their advocacy work, in practice, addresses both Poppendieck’s and contemporary food bank critiques. This analysis illustrates how both case study organizations built their advocacy programs on a foundation of public food program outreach—redirecting their clients to government programs—but now affect change through divergent approaches. San Francisco employs a top-down government system reform and technical assistance model. Alameda’s bottom-up social justice model reaches past food programs to broader anti-poverty advocacy. In the process, both food banks have positioned themselves as models for their peers and as bridges connecting food assistance scholarship to public policy and practice.

<p>Food insecurity, or limited access to enough foods for an active, healthy life, characterizes the situation of 65% of US food pantry clients. Food insecurity is associated with poor dietary intake of key food groups and nutrients, diet-related chronic disease, poor physical and mental health, and reduced quality of life. Although food pantry clients are prevalently food insecure, there is a sizeable proportion of clients who are classified as food secure (FS), or report having adequate access to healthy foods. Previous studies suggest that food secure pantry clients may use pantry resources differently, and have diets that differ in quality and intake, compared to food insecure clients (including low food secure [LFS] and very low food secure [VLFS] clients). </p><p>Food pantries may be an important venue for interventions to improve food security and dietary outcomes. Since dietary intake and use of food pantries may differ by food security status, the efficacy of such interventions may also differ by food security status. A social ecological modeled (SEM), community-based intervention in the food pantry setting is promising in sustaining local change efforts and may facilitate long-term implementation of strategies to improve diet-related outcomes among food pantry clients. Therefore, the aims of this dissertation were to 1) characterize differences in diet quality and intake between FS, LFS and VLFS pantry clients; 2) explore associations between the nutritional quality of the pantry food environment (foods in stock and foods distributed to clients) and client diet quality by food security status; and 3) evaluate the intermediate effects of a SEM, community-based intervention to improve diet-related outcomes among pantry clients with comparison by food security status.</p><p>Aim 1 was addressed by examining associations between food security and both diet quality and usual intake (in separate mixed multiple linear regression models) in a cross-sectional analysis of adult food pantry clients at baseline. FS status was associated with a higher Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) whole grains score, as well as a higher mean usual intakes of whole grains and iron, compared to LFS status. FS status was also associated with higher mean usual intakes of dark green vegetables and total dairy compared to LFS and VLFS status.</p><p>Aim 2 was addressed by evaluating the relationship between the quality of the mix of foods in stock (pantry inventories) and distributed (client food bags) at food pantries with client diet quality, and investigating how these relationships varied by food security status, in a cross-sectional analysis of adult food pantry clients at baseline. Client food bag HEI-2010 scores were positively associated with client diet scores for the total vegetables, total fruit, total protein foods, and sodium components, while pantry inventory HEI-2010 scores were negatively associated with client diet scores for the total score and for the total fruit and fatty acids components. VLFS clients consumed more whole grains from client food bags compared to FS clients, and consumed more greens and beans from pantry inventories compared to LFS clients.</p><p>Aim 3 was addressed by evaluating longitudinal changes in adult food security, diet quality and usual intake over the first two years (baseline to midpoint) of a three-year SEM, community-based food pantry intervention‒ Voices for Food (Clinical Trial Registry: NCT0356609). Adult food security score improved in the intervention group, while HEI-2010 total score and several component scores improved in the comparison group. When comparing the change in main outcomes over time between the intervention and comparison groups, no favorable differences were observed at this intermediate time point.</p><p> </p><p>Food pantries do not comprise a homogeneous population of clients. Pantry clients have different quality diets and rely on pantries to acquire different types of foods depending on their food security status. Food pantries may be an important venue to target interventions that improve diet-related outcomes, with consideration for the complex interplay between food security status, the pantry food environment and availability of resources to prepare healthy foods. Evaluation of the final study time point, as well as further investigation of the dose-dependent effect of each intervention component and other individual community characteristics, may elucidate the relationship between the intervention and client outcomes.</p><p></p>

In this thesis, we study three emerging applications of OR/MS, namely, (i) disease spread modeling, intervention strategies, and food supply chain management during an influenza pandemic, (ii) the practical applications of production planning and scheduling in the commercial lithographic printing industry, and (iii) packing/placement problems in chip design in the semiconductor industry. In the first part of the thesis, we study an emergency response planning problem motivated by discussions with the American Red Cross, which has taken on a responsibility to feed people in case of an influenza pandemic. During an emergency such as an influenza pandemic or a bioterror attack, regular distribution channels of critical products and services including food and water may be disrupted, or some of the infected individuals may not be able to go to grocery stores. We analyze the geographical spread of the disease and develop solution approaches for designing the food distribution supply chain network in case of an influenza pandemic. In addition, we investigate the effect of voluntary quarantine on the disease spread and food distribution supply chain network. Finally, we analyze the effect of influenza pandemic on the workforce level. In the second part, we study a real life scheduling/packing problem motivated by the practices in the commercial lithographic printing industry which make up the largest segment of the printing industry. We analyze the problem structure and develop efficient algorithms to form cost effective production schedules. In addition, we propose a new integer programming formulation, strengthen it by adding cuts and propose several preprocessing steps to solve the problem optimally. In the last part of the thesis, motivated by the chip design problem in the semiconductor industry, we study a rectangle packing/placement problem. We discuss the hardness of the problem, explore the structural properties, and discuss a special case which is polynomially solvable. Then, we develop an integer programming formulation and propose efficient algorithms to find a ``good' placement.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Keskinocak, Pinar; Committee Member: Ergun, Ozlem; Committee Member: Goldsman, David; Committee Member: Hupert, Nathaniel; Committee Member: Swann, Julie. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.