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| - Objective: To examine associations between sociodemographic and mental health characteristics with household food insecurity as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Design: Cross-sectional online survey analyzed using univariable tests and a multivariable logistic regression model. Setting: The United States during the week of March 30, 2020. Participants: Convenience sample of 1,965 American adults using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. Participants reporting household food insecurity prior to the pandemic were excluded from analyses. Results: 1,517 participants reported household food security before the COVID-19 outbreak. Among this subset, 30% reported food insecurity after the COVID-19 outbreak, 53% were women and 72% were white. On multivariable analysis, race, income, relationship status, anxiety, and depression were significantly associated with incident household food insecurity. Black respondents, Hispanic/Latino respondents, and respondents with annual income less than $100,000 were significantly more likely to experience incident household food insecurity. Individuals experiencing incident household food insecurity were 2.09 (95% CI 1.58-2.83) times more likely to screen positively for anxiety and 1.88 (95% CI 1.37-2.52) times more likely to screen positively for depression. Conclusions: Food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic is common, and certain populations are particularly vulnerable. There are strong associations between food insecurity and anxiety/depression. Public health interventions to increase the accessibility of healthful foods, especially for Black and Hispanic/Latino communities, are crucial to relieving the economic stress of this pandemic.
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