Table 1.

Summary of studies on the COVID-19 pandemic and food insecurity

	Abay et al. [1]	Adjognon et al. [2]	Aggarwall et al. [3]	Amare et al. [5]	Ceballos et al. [16]	Kansiime et al. [37]	Mahmud and Riley [41]	Hirvonen et al. [33]
A: Published?	IFPRI Discussion Paper	Food Policy	NBER Working Paper	IFPRI Discussion Paper	World Development	World Development	World Development	American Journal of Agricultural Economics
B: Geographic area	Rural Ethiopia	Mali	Rural Liberia and rural Malawi	Nigeria	Haryana and Odisha, India	Kenya and Uganda	Rural Uganda	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
C: Geographically representative?	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
D: Data source	Phone survey from ongoing project	LSMS and follow-up phone surveyi	Phone survey from ongoing project	LSMS and follow-up phone survey	Phone survey from ongoing project	Online survey	Phone survey from ongoing project	Phone survey from ongoing project
E: Pre-survey date	March–August 2019	October 2018–July 2019	January 2020	July 2018–February 2019	April 2020	Pre-pandemic recall	March 2020	August–September 2019
F: Post-survey date	June 2020	May–June 2020	August 2020	April–May 2020	May 2020	April 2020	May 2020	May–August 2020
G: Short-term results?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
H: Empirical method	Difference-in-differencesii	Pre–post comparison and difference-in-differences	Panel data with fixed effects	Difference-in-differences	Pre–post comparison	Pre–post comparison	Pre–post comparison	Pre–post comparison and difference-in-differences
I: Outcome variable	Food gapiii	Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)iv	Diet diversity, hunger scale, and food consumption	Partial Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)	Food availability and access indicators	Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)	Food expenditures per adult equivalent	Food consumption and diet diversity
J: Key finding	Increase in food insecurity	Increase in food insecurity	No change in food insecurity	Increase in food insecurity	Mixed results	Increase in food insecurity	Increase in food expenditures	No change in food insecurity
K: Do pandemic-related disruptions explain the result?v	Yes	Yes	N/A, markets disrupted but food insecurity remained stable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A, income and job loss but food consumption remained stable
L: Do results differ in urban vs. rural areas	N/A	Yes	N/A	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
M: Do results differ by socio-economic status?	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes, more adverse changes for poorer households	N/A	N/A	Yes, more adverse changes for wealthier households	N/A
N: Do results differ by access to social support?	Yes, Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP)	N/A	Yes, cash transfers	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

This list includes the authors’ tabulation of studies that analyze an outcome variable measuring some dimension of food insecurity over time with measures pre-dating the pandemic and measures collected after the onset of the pandemic. Many studies, which we discuss in this article, do not meet these criteria

ⁱThe Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) is a series of household surveys conducted by the World Bank

ⁱⁱA difference-in-difference regression specification is like a pre–post comparison, but the pre–post difference is combined with a difference across two groups

ⁱⁱⁱThe “food gap” is the number of months the household was not able to satisfy its food needs [13]

^ivThe Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) is a measurement tool used to estimate the extent of the multidimensional experience of food insecurity [50]

^vPandemic-related disruptions can include government-mandated lockdowns or individual behavior change due to fear of contracting COVID-19