Complex Food Insecurity Context Experienced by Households That Include People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the United States

Food security among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and households that include a person with IDD is an understudied area. We conducted in-depth interviews with 22 low-income food insecure adults with IDD and family members of children with IDD who resided in the U.S. during late 2024 and early 2025 to develop a thorough understanding of their household food security context The four members of the research team used a rapid deductive approach to code the interview transcripts. Coding agreement was assured by having all four members code a small set of initial interviews and refining the codebook until coding agreement was moderate or strong among all coders. Each coder then conducted independent coding on a set of interviews. The study results show that low-income households that include a person with IDD often struggle to access the food necessary for their households due to a complex interaction of dietary requirements, economic factors, food acquisition challenges, limitations in the ability to prepare healthy foods, and barriers to accessing public and community-based nutrition assistance programs. To improve food security for low-income households that include a person with IDD will therefore require strategies that go beyond traditional approaches of providing in-kind assistance to purchase food or free food to consider what changes to environmental factors or policies and practices are needed.