Exploring the Nexus of Food, Poverty, and Social Policy

Dear Colleagues,

We are calling for papers with a substantive, theoretical, conceptual, or methodological focus on the intersection of Food, Poverty, and Social Policy.  We are interested in papers that take an innovative, inclusive, and sustainable approach to addressing food insecurity, nutrition insecurity, and hunger, and are particularly hopeful for submissions from scholars working in both the developed and developing worlds.  Articles that address these relationships drawn from a variety of disciplines are welcome, and those that amplify the voices of marginalized populations and producers and consumers of food are especially hoped for.  Papers can be conceptual or may utilize qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, but we are seeking work from scholars engaged in social science research.

We conceptualize social and public policy contributions to this issue to be broader than explicit food programs such as SNAP or WIC (drawing from a US example), and believe that programs for income maintenance, child welfare, housing, transportation, community development, health care, and community organizing can also play a role in addressing food insecurity and nutritional inadequacies.  Scholars working to understanding causal relationships between poverty, material hardship, or social exclusion and food insecurity are invited to submit manuscripts as well as those who are working specifically on policies designed to reduce hunger or food insecurity.

Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Nature, prevalence and incidence of food insecurity and hunger in specific populations and geographic contexts;
• Food insecurity in relation to poverty, material hardship, or social exclusion;
• Racial, gender, religious, and other issues impacting differences in food access, food management, or food security;
• Welfare policy and impacts on food insecurity and hunger;
• Nutrition programs and the relationship to social and economic well-being;
• Health policy and nutritional and dietary needs;
• Sustainable and translatable policies in conditions of crisis such as natural disaster, pandemic, famine, and war;
• Community-centered and collective food production and consumption;
• Cultural competency in addressing hunger and hunger alleviation efforts.

Please submit your proposals and any questions to Special Issue editors by 15 June 2024. Notification of acceptance will be provided by 1 August 2024. Final papers are due on 31 December 2024 for peer review.

Dr. Edward T. Scanlon
Dr. Maryah Stella Fram
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• food insecurity
• hunger
• nutrition insecurity
• poverty
• material hardship
• social policy
• public policy
• health policy
• dietary needs
• sustainability