Access to Material Basic Needs and Women's Health

An introduction by Dr Kelley Massengale, Guest Editor of this Special Collection.

This talk will highlight findings from a statewide survey of school nurses in Missouri plus a series of follow-up focus groups.

Growing awareness of and action to address period poverty has created the opportunity to rethink the relative cultural invisibility of menstruation – and the knowledge and policy deficits fostered by this invisibility at multiple levels – from population trends to state policy, institutional support and lived experience. Increasingly, research and advocacy around period poverty acknowledge the need to address its ecology – to assess and engage the multiple levels of operation and action that bear on period poverty and the actions at each level that may alleviate or end it. With respect to primary-school aged children, addressing the ecology of period poverty involves an accurate, local profile of menstruation’s epidemiology and the economic profile of schools and school districts. It depends on the disposition of state policymakers and education administrators toward committing resources to address the issue. It involves school level policy and practices that recognize and respond to student needs. It requires an ongoing dialog with students to communicate the school’s investment in students’ wellbeing as inseparable from its investment in the students’ academic success. Preliminary analysis of pilot data collected in the wake of passage of legislation to address period poverty revealed important considerations at the level of the epidemiology of menstruation, students’ equipment and privacy needs surrounding period management and effects of period management on students’ functioning and wellbeing at school.

Introduction: Diaper need is a major financial burden and critical material hardship experienced by a substantial number of families with young children in the U.S. We aimed to describe the most frequently occurring stressors among caregivers receiving diaper assistance from a local diaper bank to identify potential clinical, programmatic, and policy interventions to improve wellbeing among families with diaper need.

Methods: Caregivers receiving diaper assistance at community-based organizations in North Carolina completed surveys, including a modified Everyday Stressors Index, from November 2021 to April 2022. We calculated the number and percent of caregivers reporting that each stressor caused them “a lot of” or “some” stress.

Results: Most participants were women (97.4%) with 39.2% identifying as Black and 26.7% as Hispanic. Most had at least one adult in the household currently working for pay (79.0%), and one-third (36.8%) had household income ≤$15,999. More than half of participants reported “a lot of” or “some” stress about not having enough time to do the things they want (58.5%), affording diapers (58.3%), affording rent or mortgage (54.1%), having too many responsibilities or things to do (53.1%), and affording utility bills like water and electricity (51.0%).

Conclusions: Caregivers need support having enough money to meet basic needs and having sufficient time to meet their responsibilities and goals. Potential strategies specific to diaper need include repealing state sales tax on diapers and designating diapers as a medical necessity. Broad strategies include increased tax credits to families and increased minimum wage.