Food Insecurity and Type 2 Diabetes Among Latinos

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A group of smiling women of Latino descent interact outdoors around a table with dishes of food; 1 stands at the head, working a mortar and pestle

Existing research shows a strong link between food insecurity and type 2 diabetes among Latino adults. Latino adults who experience food insecurity are three times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than people who are food secure. To understand the nature of this relationship, researchers examined the possible influence of neighborhood social cohesion.

Neighborhood social cohesion is when people living in proximity have trusting interpersonal relationships and look out for one another by providing resources (e.g., meals, money, care referrals) and emotional support that build resiliency. Research highlights numerous positive outcomes across health conditions attributed to this type of social connectedness.

In the current study, researchers analyzed type 2 diabetes, food security, and neighborhood cohesion data reported by 23,478 Latino adults ages 18 years or older who responded to the 2013-2018 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The NHIS is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that asks U.S. households about their health status and access to health care. This study is the first to test whether neighborhood cohesion moderates the association between food security status and T2D among Latinos nationwide.

Findings revealed that, compared to Latinos who were food secure:

Those with low food security had 1.84 times the odds of having type 2 diabetes.
Those with very low food security had 2.0 times the odds of having type 2 diabetes.
Also, Latino adults reporting high levels of neighborhood cohesion were 0.86 less likely to have type 2 diabetes compared to those who reported low levels of neighborhood cohesion.

The researchers concluded that neighborhood cohesion may have impacted Latino adults’ exposure to food insecurity, but it did not influence the relationship between food insecurity and type 2 diabetes in this population. This could be because it takes time for type 2 diabetes to develop after a person experiences food insecurity or because of the limitations of the self-reported measures used in the study.

The researchers explained that, although neighborhood cohesion is an important factor that potentially affects both food insecurity and type 2 diabetes, more research is needed to determine its exact role.

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