(P07-05-26) Using Latent Class Analysis to Elucidate Experiences and Response Patterns in Food Security Among University Students

Objectives: Food insecurity (FI) is a pressing public health issue, expected to worsen in the coming years, and rates among college students are 3-5 times the national average. Understanding how different latent classes respond to FI questionnaires is important for addressing structural barriers and understanding why FI among college students is so high.

Methods: This is secondary data derived from census data collected by administrators at Pennsylvania State University (Fall 2022) using online surveys, which included sociodemographic information and FI using the USDA's 10-item Adult Food Security Survey Module. Complete cases were analyzed (n=16,138). A latent class analysis was conducted using gender (gender diverse, man, woman), sexual orientation (heterosexual, sexually diverse), parent education (high school, college, graduate), disability (yes, no/ do not know), race (white, black, Hispanic, other), and college campus (University Park (UP), other). The Rasch model was used to understand the response patterns of each class.

Results: A three-class model showed the best results based on interpretability and information criterion (AIC: 131124, BIC: 131370). The 3 classes identified: Class 1 (36%; heterosexual, men and women, parents with high school/college, no disability, white, not at UP), Class 2 (53%; heterosexual, men/women, parents with college/graduate degrees, no disability, white, not at UP), Class 3 (11%, gender diverse and women, sexually diverse, parents with college/graduate school, have disability, white, and in UP). When fitting a Poisson regression adjusted for age and with class 2 as the reference, there is an increased odds of FI among class 1 aOR 1.44 (95% CI 1.35;1.54), and class 3 aOR 1.75 (95% CI 1.61;1.90). The classes also respond to the FI scale differently, with key differences being in difficulty estimates, which include food not lasting 0.81 in class 1 and 0.66 in class 3 compared to 1.14 in class 2, and losing weight, -0.92 in class 1 compared to -1.31 and -1.24 in class 2 and class 3, respectively.

Conclusions: These results show that marginalized groups of disability and gender diversity have higher odds of FI, and different classes respond differently to affirming food insecurity. This indicates the need for further tools to assess FI among college students.

Funding Sources: None