Federal nutrition programs and charitable meals make up the first line of defense, but solving this challenge requires communities to go beyond food to disrupt the root causes of economic distress including high housing costs, income and work, financial security, health and structural disadvantage.

A new dashboard, developed by Urban Institute researchers, equips localities and their partners with county-level data about food insecurity levels and related risk factors, including residents’ financial security via newly available county credit health measures. And, notably, the dashboard includes cross-cutting strategies and interventions tailored to groups of peer counties with similar profiles.

You can explore the dashboard here.