Rising Food Insecurity in times of COVID-19

Food insecurity has been an issue for a significant proportion of Scotland’s population for many years and now COVID-19 has caused the issue to become further entrenched. We understand that food insecurity under COVID-19 is firstly rooted in poverty and secondly, an issue of poor access to food.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) has been working to identify how COVID-19 is impacting on the factors that give rise to poor health outcomes. PHS has set up a group to focus on food insecurity. It aims to map what is happening at a grassroots levels to tackle food insecurity during COVID-19, capture effective responses and develop guidance on how to minimise negative health responses caused by COVID-19 and increasing food insecurity.

To support the work of this group Voluntary Health Scotland are hosting a zoom meeting to hear from voluntary and community sector organisations to identify:

• who the vulnerable groups are
• what is working to tackle both the pre-existing food insecurities n Scotland and those that have come to light due to COVID-19.
• what long term actions are required to mitigate food insecurity