Rankings · Health

Lowest food insecurity by state

Adults who were food insecure in the past year.

Adults who could not reliably afford enough food at some point in the past twelve months. A modelled estimate rather than a count: CDC projects the national BRFSS survey onto counties using local demographics, so this is what a population like this one typically reports, not what this county was asked. Close to a measurement in a large county, leaning heavily on the model in a small rural one. It measures affordability, not distance to a shop — a county can have groceries on every corner and high food insecurity. Coverage is partial and unevenly so: these questions come from an optional survey module that not every state runs, so around 2,300 of 3,143 counties have a figure and the missing ones are whole states rather than scattered gaps. A blank state here means its survey did not ask, not that nobody there is affected.

  1. 1New Hampshire9.5%
  2. 2Maine10.7%
  3. 3North Dakota10.8%
  4. 4Minnesota11.4%
  5. 5Montana11.8%
  6. 6Iowa12.0%
  7. 7Wisconsin12.2%
  8. 8Massachusetts12.4%
  9. 9Nebraska12.4%
  10. 10Utah12.4%
  11. 11Idaho12.8%
  12. 12Kansas13.1%
  13. 13Virginia13.1%
  14. 14Missouri13.8%
  15. 15District of Columbia13.9%
  16. 16Delaware13.9%
  17. 17Ohio14.1%
  18. 18New Jersey14.4%
  19. 19Alaska14.5%
  20. 20Indiana14.8%
  21. 21Connecticut14.9%
  22. 22Rhode Island15.2%
  23. 23Maryland15.3%
  24. 24North Carolina15.3%
  25. 25Michigan15.5%
  26. 26Arizona15.9%
  27. 27Illinois15.9%
  28. 28West Virginia16.2%
  29. 29Hawaii17.3%
  30. 30New York17.4%
  31. 31South Carolina17.5%
  32. 32Georgia17.8%
  33. 33Nevada18.0%
  34. 34California18.1%
  35. 35Oklahoma18.5%
  36. 36Arkansas18.6%
  37. 37Alabama19.2%
  38. 38New Mexico21.1%
  39. 39Mississippi22.4%
  40. 40Louisiana22.5%

Not ranked, because this measure is not published for them: Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming. This state does not include these questions in its health survey, so no figure is published for anywhere in it. That is a gap in the survey, not a finding about the place.

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Source: CDC PLACES. · How this is built