P3.D073: From Bedside to Table: Medical Student Advocacy To Address Childhood Food Insecurity

Background: More than 1 in 5 families in the United States experience food insecurity, which is only increasing. Inequitable access to healthy food, which disproportionately impacts racialized populations and lower socioeconomic status households, has a significant impact on child development and pediatric health outcomes. Childhood food insecurity (CFI) is associated with poorer physical health, mental health, and academic performance. In children under age 5, CFI is associated with worse early childhood development. Physiologically, CFI exerts its effects through several pathways, including inadequate nutritional intake, which can affect developing organ systems, and altered brain development and functioning, including aberrant activity in dopaminergic neurons. Further, CFI has been shown to have epigenetic consequences, meaning it may impact wellbeing across generations. Combating CFI is a priority target to improve pediatric public health. Pediatric trainees can play an important role in galvanizing advocacy efforts, both by increasing physician and public knowledge of CFI and by working within medical advocacy organizations to increase lobbying efforts.

Project Description: As medical trainees, we pursued multiple strategies to combat CFI, including (1) organizing a month-long advocacy campaign through the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Pediatric Trainees (SOPT), to raise awareness and urge action to support families; (2) writing resolutions for state medical societies to advocate for Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (SEBTC), a policy with demonstrated success in reducing food insecurity and improving nutritional intake; and (3) submitting an AAP resolution urging the Academy to formally advocate for nationwide participation in the SEBTC.

Discussion: By combining these strategies, we aimed to increase knowledge about food insecurity among pediatric trainees, create mechanisms for state-level advocacy by medical students, and elevate the importance of CFI within the AAP writ large. The social media campaign received an average of 700 views (range: 380-1.2k) per Tweet in the first week, which featured content centered on the epidemiology of CFI; the remaining three weeks will cover CFI screening, resources, and policy advocacy. In addition, resolutions advocating for SEBTC have been submitted to three state medical societies (WI, IA, SC) and to the AAP.

Conclusion: Advocacy by pediatric trainees can have a substantial impact and has the potential to reduce the harms of CFI. This trainee advocacy initiative was able to both increase awareness about the harms of and potential solutions to CFI, as well as pursue structural change by promoting policies that directly shape food access.