A survey of food bank operations in five Canadian cities

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorTarasuk, Valerie
dc.contributor.authorDachner, Naomi
dc.contributor.authorHamelin, Anne-Marie
dc.contributor.authorOstry, Aleck
dc.contributor.authorWilliams, Patricia
dc.contributor.authorBosckei, Elietha
dc.contributor.authorPoland, Blake
dc.contributor.authorRaine, Kim
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-21T18:41:18Z
dc.date.available2015-05-21T18:41:18Z
dc.date.copyright2014en_US
dc.date.issued2014-11-28
dc.descriptionBioMed Centralen_US
dc.description.abstractBackground: Food banks have emerged in response to growing food insecurity among low-income groups in many affluent nations, but their ability to manage this problem is questionable. In Canada, in the absence of public programs and policy interventions, food banks are the only source of immediate assistance for households struggling to meet food needs, but there are many indications that this response is insufficient. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that facilitate and limit food bank operations in five Canadian cities and appraise the potential of these initiatives to meet food needs. Methods: An inventory of charitable food provisioning in Halifax, Quebec City, Toronto, Edmonton, and Victoria, Canada was conducted in 2010. Of the 517 agencies that participated in a telephone survey of their operations, 340 were running grocery programs. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to determine the association between program characteristics, volume of service, and indicators of strain in food banks’ abilities to consistently achieve the standards of assistance they had established. Results: Extensive, well-established food bank activities were charted in each city, with the numbers of people assisted ranging from 7,111 in Halifax to 90,141 in Toronto per month. Seventy-two percent of agencies indicated that clients needed more food than they provided. The number of people served by any one agency in the course of a month was positively associated with the proportion of food distributed that came from donations (beta 0.0143, SE 0.0024, p 0.0041) and the number of volunteers working in the agency (beta 0.0630, SE 0.0159, p 0.0167). Food banks only achieved equilibrium between supply and demand when they contained demand through restrictions on client access. When access to assistance was less restricted, the odds of food banks running out of food and invoking measures to ration remaining supplies and restrict access rose significantly. Conclusions: Despite their extensive history, food banks in Canada remain dependent on donations and volunteers, with available resources quickly exhausted in the face of agencies’ efforts to more fully meet clients’ needs. Food banks have limited capacity to respond to the needs of those who seek assistance.en_US
dc.description.reviewstatusRevieweden_US
dc.description.scholarlevelFacultyen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis study was funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research operating grant (MOP-10591).en_US
dc.identifier.citationTarasuk et al.: A survey of food bank operations in five Canadian cities. BMC Public Health 2014 14:1234en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/1234
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1234
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/6189
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherBMC Public Healthen_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/*
dc.subjectFood banksen_US
dc.subjectFood insecurityen_US
dc.subjectCanadaen_US
dc.titleA survey of food bank operations in five Canadian citiesen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Tarasuk_Valerie_BMCPublicHealth_2014.pdf
Size:
346.23 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.74 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Faculty Publications (Social Sciences)
 
University of Victoria Libraries

We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.