(P02-042-23) Associations Between Food Security Status, Depression, and Anxiety Among Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences-Newark Graduate Students

Objectives: This study aims to describe the demographic characteristics, food security status, self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms, and associations between food security status, depression, and anxiety symptoms of graduate-level health professions students at a large urban university in the northeastern region of the US.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of a study of cross-sectional design. Data were examined from 597 graduate-level health professions students who responded to an online survey between January and March 2021. Tools used were the USDA Household Food Security Survey, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-2) questionnaire. Response rate was 12.4%. Pearson’s chi-square test of independence described the associations between food security status, depression, and anxiety scores.

Results: Median age of participants (n=563) was 26.0 years. The largest percentage of participants were female (69.9%, n=402), White (42.4%, n=241), non-Hispanic (87.6%, n=510). The sample was comprised of doctoral (73.2%, n=421) and masters (26.8%, n=154) students, with the largest representation from the NJ Medical School (32.0%, n=184). Of the 575 participants, 19.1% (n=110) had food insecurity. Twenty-eight-point-seven percent (n=165) screened positive for depression, and 15.7% (n=90) screened positive for anxiety. There was a significant positive association between food security status and screening positive for depression and anxiety (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: A greater proportion of graduate-level health professions students with food insecurity (FI) screened positive for depression and anxiety than those with food security. Further research may help determine the extent of FI in health professions students and the associations between FI and mental health.

Funding Sources: None