Dear Colleagues,

Food insecurity and low resources continue to be a burden influencing the health, well-being, growth, and development of millions of U.S. children and adults. Groups and individuals experiencing restrained access to food are our neighbors, individuals we may see each day, and individuals who we may not interact with or see because of their isolated situations. They include the elderly, those experiencing mental illness, veterans, certain race/ethnic groups, adolescents, young women with children, those living in rural areas, and those using food pantries, among others. Many of these groups, both hidden and visible, have rates of food insecurity above the national average that are resistant to national improvements in food security. Yet, attention to these subsets of the population is imperative to improve U.S. health and nutrition and to reduce rates of chronic disease.

Many groups face specific barriers to maintaining sufficient food, for example, rural populations may find it difficult to access federal food assistance or other resources such as food pantries and nutrition education because of distance or lack of consistent internet access separating them from these resources. Further, their remote locations may make it difficult to obtain the types of foods that they prefer.  Other specific barriers may include limited facilities and equipment for food preparation, access to culturally appropriate foods and preparation supplies, and foods that complement the foods that they already have. Tailored approaches to quantify access to food, the nutrition environment, dietary intake, and other barriers are necessary to build successful interventions and to quantify the needs in these populations.

Very little is known about the nutritional status and dietary intake in these low-resource and food insecure groups, and dietary barriers are not understood. Creating interventions that improve food security and improve dietary intake, however, are dependent on this information. We cannot improve what we do not understand.

In order to begin to fill this gap, the objective of this Special Issue on “Nutrition Among Vulnerable Populations” is to publish selected papers quantifying dietary intake, nutritional status, access to food and food insecurity, barriers to healthful foods and food security, and environmental influences experienced by vulnerable groups with a high prevalence of food insecurity.

Prof. Heather Eicher-Miller
Prof. Marie Kainoa Fialkowski Revilla
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Food insecurity
• Chronic disease
• Nutrition environment
• Dietary intake