Food Insecure Veterans

This is a simple proportion analysis to determine the number of veterans who may be impacted by food scarcity in the United states by county. The population of veterans in each county (9L_VetPop2016_County) was used with the total population in each county (DataDownload3.18) to determine the proportion of veterans in each county. We assumed that veterans were just as likely as anyone else to be in food scarcity and multiplied the proportion of veterans in each county by the number of low access people in the county to determine the number of food insecure veterans by county. We also used statewide very low food secure percentage as a conservative estimate of the number of veterans affected by food scarcity.

This dataset was not created to be a perfect representation of the exact number of food insecure veterans. In fact, it is a very rough calculation. However, this back of the envelope calculation shows that the number of food insecure veterans is likely very high.

Using county level food access we find that up to 3 million veterans could be affected by low food access, as a conservative estimate, we use the state level "very low food security percentage" and find that a minimum of 200 thousand veterans are likely food insecure. For calculations see sheet "Calculations" in DataDownload3.18.xls

(9L_VetPOP2016_Count.csv)