 Food access continues to be an enormous issue in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in communities of color. Today, we are privileged to be joined by Dr. Chris Paul, an assistant professor of public administration at North Carolina Central University. Yes, you heard that right. Chris Paul, a professor at NCCU who has done some groundbreaking research on just what the numbers look like in terms of food access or the lack thereof and what it means going forward for COVID-19 response in some of these vulnerable communities. So Dr. Paul, great to have you on today. Thanks so much. It's great to be here, Mr. Carter. So tell us a little bit about this survey because this touches on a couple of different issues and it's statewide, even though NCCU is based in Durham, this is something that statewide that measures Carolinians talking about their level of food access. Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think North Carolina Central University truly is central to the state as a whole. And I think part of our work in the research community and the educational community is to make sure we're expanding that reach and reaching every corner of the state from our base in Durham. And so this survey is a rapid assessment of hunger in North Carolina and the food security situation during COVID. And it's part of a bigger project at NCCU, the Advanced Center on COVID-related Disparities that is studying the impact of COVID in North Carolina. And it's a very, you know, very troubling result that we found that overall 17% of the respondents had not had adequate food in the past week. This is just last week, November 17th to 22nd in this year 2020. And it's, you know, it's of course particularly awful to hear about this at the holidays. And so the survey really informs a lot of thinking about what we need to do to respond to these problems in North Carolina. And it also, you know, very much is part of our overall work at NCCU to understand how communities in North Carolina, particularly minority and underserved communities are being impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Let's just put this into context. Can you tell us how many people responded? And the assumption would be that this is just from people who responded. It may not encompass a healthy cross-section of the population. And this is in the context of food pantries, different non-profits, other organizations trying to kick into overdrive food provision and food distribution programming, right? Yeah, that's a great question about what, you know, who are we actually talking about here? So this is an internet-based survey for across the state of North Carolina. We had over 1300 responses from 97 of North Carolina's 100 counties. And so that, it's an internet-based survey. This means that people who are responding have internet access. They have devices they can respond to surveys on. And yet, even with this group, they are still experiencing hunger that are at some of the highest levels we've seen in North Carolina since the Great Recession. And we used a, this type of survey is called a quota-based sample survey. And so we established quotas based on North Carolina's demographics around race and ethnicity, income level, and then the geography of the counties, the so-called county tiers we have in North Carolina of rural and urban economically distressed counties. And this allows us to get a pretty broad look, particularly since we're reaching over 1000 people. Our target was 1500. We reached over 1300 people to see that of this large number of respondents representing a really great geographic diversity and demographics like the state of North Carolina. Unfortunately, across that group and really high levels of problems from the coronavirus pandemic. This is part of a statewide effort that several of the public HBCUs are involved in in Carolina with federal support to not only address COVID infection rates and community spread, but then to create research and information about its impact. Can you talk a little bit about that collaborative effort among the institutions and North Carolina Central and specifically the world? Absolutely, thanks for pointing out a really exciting moment for not just NCCU, but other HBCUs in North Carolina. This funding came from the North Carolina General Assembly as an appropriation and then these programs are being supported by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory, which is based at UNC Chapel Hill and is overseeing these research programs and efforts. And so each university has a different approach. At NCCU, we have 12 projects and then we're focused on nine counties specifically in North Carolina, primarily in Central North Carolina in the Charlotte and Triangle region as well as two on the coast in the east. And so this focus allows us to engage the broad group of interdisciplinary researchers at NCCU across these projects, working on everything from vaccine development through to questions like my groups that I'm part of with Dr. Esnicole Diggs and Dr. Doyeon Lee, looking at the other impacts of coronavirus. Of course, the disease is awful. We hear about that in this survey and how bad its impact to the families in the survey, but it's also these impacts on people's well-being in terms of ability to connect with their family and neighbors, their ability to get the aid and they need the ability to work. All of those things are huge impacts on people's livelihoods and well-being that are outside of the direct impact of the disease. And then going forward, what do you think the effects will be after the pandemic, right? So we're talking about food access now. At some point, there's going to be a metric on healthcare. There's going to be a metric on public funding to address some of these disparities, particularly in vulnerable communities. Is your research or your team going to be looking at when this is over, especially because now we're looking at, okay, what does the vaccine look like? How do you deploy that? Is there going to be ongoing research about those kind of resources and life after this? Because it seems like there would be some long-term effects well after we've developed a way for people to just physically be okay. Absolutely. And I really appreciate that question and attention. And that's where we should all be is figuring a path through to control COVID and then how to strengthen our communities and our society. Our survey specifically looks a lot at community well-being and what I research social capital and people's ability to connect with their neighbors to increase food security, to increase health, increase healthy behaviors. The Accord program, a big focus of the research is to understand people's willingness to get tested and then to get vaccinated and engage in public health behaviors. And then our work is also, we call it the HOPE program, which is focused on population and environmental health in North Carolina and so in our nine target counties. And so with this program, we plan to have a mobile food pantry and do nutritional programming to support communities in the counties. We are also working with health clinics to enhance their resources and their connectedness to other public health programs. And so it certainly fits into a broader set of work that will go long after the pandemic is over. And then just the final question is a personal point of period. So you're the first most famous Chris Paul in North Carolina. We talked a little bit about this before we got on the air. You talked about your restaurant game is on point because of that. What is it like on a daily basis at this point to walk around with such a distinguished name that you and your own right have made popular? But there's another guy in the state who also bears it who's trying to put his work as well. Well, I must have been a little faster on the social media game if I'm not, definitely not on the court because I have a CJ Paul as my Instagram handle. And so I feel lucky to share that name. And sometimes it gets a little extra attention on the first day of class until people realize I'm not very athletic. Well, you're doing amazing work in important ways, man. And we appreciate what you're putting in on behalf of communities across North Carolina, particularly in the Raleigh Durham area. And we're just grateful for the work that you and your team are doing. Chris Paul, Professor of North Carolina Central Public Administration. Thank you for your time today, man. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.