(P02-041-23) Association Between Food Security Status and Academic Performance Among Health Professions Students

Objectives: There is limited research on the prevalence of food insecurity among health professions students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the association between food insecurity and academic performance as measured by self-reported cumulative grade point average (GPA).

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of a survey entitled Food Insecurity and Associated Factors Among Students at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS-Newark) during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The web-based survey consisted of 45-questions distributed in spring 2021 to health professions students at a northeastern university in the United States. Data included demographics and socioeconomic characteristics, food security status as assessed by the Household Food Security Survey Module: Six-Item Short Form (HFSS-6), the self-reported impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, and cumulative self-reported GPA. A Fisher’s exact test evaluated the association between food security status and GPA.

Results: The response rate was 16.1% (747 out of 4,638). Forty-one of participants (n = 308) had a GPA of 3.00-3.69, and 55.7% (n = 416) had a GPA of 3.70-4.00. Twenty-two percent of participants (n = 167) were food insecure, and 83.0% (n = 615) reported no change in food security status due to the pandemic. A greater proportion of health professions students who were food insecure reported a lower GPA than their food secure counterparts, (p = 0.011). Fifteen percent of participants (n = 109) reported becoming more food insecure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of those who reported becoming more food insecure, 68.8% (n = 75) were assessed as being food insecure compared to the 31.2% (n = 34) of participants who were assessed as being food secure.

Conclusions: Health professions students who were food insecure were more likely to have a lower GPA. Future studies should assess the specific needs of health professions students and barriers to food security to develop food assistance interventions to combat food insecurity. Additionally, alternative measures of academic performance besides self-reported GPA should be used in future research.

Funding Sources: None