Preventive Services for Food Insecurity: Evidence Report and Systematic Review for the US Preventive Services Task Force

Top Things to Know

Brief screening tools are effective in identifying food insecurity with high sensitivity and specificity.

Medically tailored meals and mobile food pantries showed some positive impacts on food security and health outcomes.

The findings underscore the need for high-quality research to better understand the impact of these interventions.

Summary of Conclusion/Findings

The review assessed the effectiveness and safety of screening and interventions for food insecurity in healthcare settings. It found that brief screening tools have sufficient sensitivity to identify food insecurity, but most intervention studies had high risk of bias, limiting firm conclusions. One fair-quality randomized crossover study showed reduced food insecurity with medically tailored meal delivery. Another fair-quality study found a smaller increase in BMI among children participating in a mobile food pantry. Overall, interventions generally trended towards improving food security, but evidence was limited and often not statistically significant.