Addressing Food Insecurity Concerns among New Jersey Residents and Patients

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Health Equity Monthly Focus
By Anita Ramsetty, MD, Director of Health Equity

January 2025

“Eat better.” This is probably one of the most common New Year’s resolutions I hear from family, friends, patients, everyone. Certainly this is a worthy goal, given that poor eating habits—including choice of foods as well as oversized portions—have contributed to some of our most concerning chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

But what if access to food is a general concern, regardless of healthy options or less healthy options? What if food access is a not certain at all? For some people, the idea of “eating better” is replaced with “do I have enough to eat (or anything at all to eat)?”

It is sometimes hard to remember during a stretch of holidays that focus so much on food—from Halloween, through Thanksgiving to Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and Lunar New Year—that not everyone has sure access to food in what is widely thought of as one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Food Insecurity in the United States and New Jersey

In the United States, in every single state, there is some level of food insecurity, a condition where access to food necessary for growth and being healthy is not enough for a person or household. In New Jersey our statewide percentage of food insecurity was 10.7% according to the New Jersey state health assessment data. It is important to know that even though as a state our rates are slightly better than the US (where the rate is about 13%), within the state of New Jersey we have rates by county as high as 13% (Hudson County) and child food insecurity rates as high as 24.3% (Atlantic county).

Addressing Food Insecurity among Patients

We all need to be aware that not everyone has a full range of choices of food options given financial and living circumstances. At Englewood Health, we screen patients for food insecurity in both our outpatient and inpatient settings. This allows not only for referrals to resources that can help address food access concerns, but also alerts the medical team so they can make appropriate adjustments to their recommendations regarding food choices as relates to health. For those asking the questions, and those answering them: please know this is extremely important for the health of our patients and not just another question to ask.

Looking for help?

If you or someone you know does not have enough access to food, please know there are resources to help including our FindHelp website, as well as New Jersey’s Basic Needs Information Hub.