Finding Food: Characterizing Food Coping Strategies Among Food Pantry Clients In The High Country

Though starvation seldom occurs in the United States, many individuals do suffer from food insecurity, which exists when access to adequate and safe food is limited or uncertain, or when such food cannot be accessed in socially acceptable ways (Ramaduria, Sharf, & Sharkey, 2012). Previous research has identified that food insecurity is exacerbated for rural residents, as they are 12–15% more likely to be food insecure (Ramaduria, Sharf, & Sharkey, 2012). To combat the hardships caused by food insecurity, individuals may turn to a multitude of practices or behaviors to maintain an adequate food supply for themselves and their households, also known as food coping strategies. This research is necessary due to the gaps in the literature that do not address rural food coping strategies, and the fact that food insecurity is a major public health concern. In 2010, 86% of all health care spending was being used for people with one or more chronic medical conditions, with obesity alone costing the United States 147 billion dollars in 2008 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Interventions are needed to address food access, insecurity, and coping strategies among low-income populations to help relieve these problems

Stereotype Threat in Black College Students Across Many Operationalizations

According to stereotype threat theory, the possibility of confirming a negative group stereotype evokes feelings of threat, leading people to underperform in domains where they are stereotyped as lacking ability. This theory has immense theoretical and practical implications. However, many studies supporting it include small samples and varying operational definitions of “stereotype threat”. We address the first challenge by leveraging a network of psychology labs to recruit a large Black student sample (Nanticipated = 2700) from multiple US sites (Nanticipated = 27). We address the second challenge by identifying three threat-increasing and three threat-decreasing procedures that could plausibly affect performance and use an adaptive Bayesian design to determine which operationalization yields the strongest evidence for underperformance. This project should advance our knowledge of a scientifically and socially important topic: the conditions under which stereotype threat affects performance among current Black students in the United States