DOI: 10.17603/ds2-t9qb-sc26
title: Food Aid Agency Data
title: in Food Access Impact Survey for Harris County and Southeast Texas after Hurricane Harvey in 2017

description: Food banks and food aid agencies help address food insecurity issues throughout the United States. This mission focused on understanding how critical infrastructure failures impact the function of food aid agencies and how the change in functioning changes food access. This research focused on five infrastructure systems -- transportation, electric power, communications, water, and the buildings or facilities utilized by food aid agencies to carry out their normal activities. The functioning of food aid agencies was broken down into three branches or domains that are critical for the operation of a food aid agencies. Specifically, food aid agencies need 1) people to help run the operation, 2) property or, more generally, a physical structure or structures, to house and conduct operations; 3) products or food stuffs to distribute. This mission includes five social science collections. The first two collections provide background on the planning and agenda for a focus group and the data collected from the focus group. The next three collections relate to an online survey of food aid agencies. These collections include the sample frame (a list of all active food aid agencies invited to participate in the survey), the primary (raw) data collected from the survey, and an example of a secondary (curated) dataset that focuses on critical infrastructure failures and changes in food aid agency functioning.
description: Food insecurity is a chronic problem in the United States that annually affects over 40 million people under normal conditions. This difficult reality can dramatically worsen after disasters. Such events can disrupt both the supply and demand sides of food systems, restricting food distribution and access precisely when households are in a heightened need for food assistance. Often, retailers and food banks must react quickly to meet local needs under difficult post-disaster circumstances. Residents of Harris County and Southeast Texas experienced this problem after Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017. The primary data collected by this project relate specifically to the supply side. The data attempt to identify factors that impacted the ability of suppliers to help ensure access to food, with a focus on fresh food access. Factors included impacts to people, property and products due to hurricane-related damage to infrastructure. Two types of food suppliers were the foci of this research: food aid agencies and food retailers. The research team examined food aid agencies in Southeast Texas with data collection methods that included secondary data analysis, a focus group and an online survey. The second population studied was food retailers with in-person surveys with store managers. Food retailers were randomly sampled in three Texas counties: Jefferson, Orange, and Harris. The data collection methods resulted in 32 food aid agency online survey responses and 210 completed food retail in-person surveys. Data were collected five to eight months after the event, which helped to increase the reliability and validity of the data. The time-sensitive nature of post-disaster data requires research teams to quickly organize their efforts before entering the field. The purpose of this project archive is to share the primary data collected, document methods, and to help future research teams reduce the amount of time needed for project development and reporting. This archive does not contain Personally or Business Identifiable Information.