Arden Rusu, Garrett Lee, Hannah Chen, and Joy Leung
Child hunger in Pennsylvania is shaped by a variety of deeply intertwined root causes. Despite their complexity, many of these issues can be traced from the national level down to individual households. Additionally, they can be grouped according to STEEP (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political) forces, providing a framework for understanding the causes and effects of this wicked problem. In our map, we have divided contributing factors into eight key categories, each connected to smaller, individual issues. This allows us to visualise how these issues inform one another and contribute to the broader problem of child hunger.
The food supply chain has a significant influence on child hunger and, in this era of sociopolitical uncertainty, is particularly susceptible to disruption. Often, low income and Black communities are first to feel the effects, which come in the form of food shortages and rising prices.
The supply chain is also informed by job loss due to understaffing in the food industry, leading to under-resourced food supply at local food suppliers and farmers’ markets. As a result, food prices increase, affecting those who are already in low-income brackets due to unemployment.
COVID-19 has negatively impacted various root causes, one of the most affected ones being the food supply chain and its lasting consequences on the limitations of food imports and exports.
Several government programs that underprivileged communities relied on had expired due to COVID-19. Minorities were most disproportionately affected by the pandemic, rooting back to systemic racism.
The education system still feels the effects of COVID-19 to this day. Essential resources such as the National School Lunch Program were hit hard by the pandemic. Today, economic disparities among Pennsylvania school districts perpetuate gaps in the availability of these programs, which low-income families depend on.
There are many issues with public transportation, such as not being able to reach proper food sources and being unreliable, rendering them inadequate in many situations. Underprivileged communities have a higher amount of reliance on public transportation and are most affected by transportation issues.
Systemic racism is a compounding factor, which is to say that given any issue, systemic racism intensifies it. COVID-19 affected minorities more, poverty affects minorities more, and redlining has caused inadequate transit to affect minorities more. The list goes on. In the context of childhood food insecurity, systemic racism makes it more difficult for communities of color to get ahead, and its hand in nearly every issue exposes the reality that America is built on racism.
In the status quo, benefits exist to help people who are experiencing food insecurity. However, many of the benefits are ineffective, target a limited number of people, or serve to dehumanise low-income families. Any of these factors leads to benefits not being used or otherwise failing to fulfil their goal of lessening the burden of hunger.
There can be barriers to finding information regarding resources that can help people obtain food, like not having social networks to provide them with information or not having access to the internet. This means that those of low socioeconomic status, people who may need the resources the most, have the hardest time gaining information that can support them.
Child Hunger in Pennsylvania is a vastly complex issue, but through our system map, we hope to condense its many contributing factors into an easily digestible visual form. Recognising the interconnected causes of a wicked problem, such as child hunger, is the first step towards change.
This map is part of the Carnegie Mellon University exhibition and interactive session organised by Luis Garcia, Structured Systems Mapping: Cultivating a practice of critical reflection and collaborative exploration.
