just food and food bank; survey-taking and numbers

“STUDY LIMITATIONS
“While efforts were made to ensure sample randomness, proportionality and consistency, there are several limitations to this study.
“First, as residents selected themselves to participate in the telephone survey, there is the potential for there to be a self-selection bias in the data.
“Second, although the overall findings are statistically significant at the +/- 3.5 percent, the margin of error increases for statistics obtained through cross-tabulation.
Finally, the interviews were conducted by Marist College Institute for Public Opinion only in English and Spanish…”

Because of all these limitations quoted above, I did not find the presentation particularly of any major significance.  It’s interesting because in class just earlier we spoke about how the question “Do you own a landline?” on the census is no longer indicative of anything; in the same way, trying to do a survey randomly by phone, I feel, is far from efficient nor indicative of the New York City population as a whole.  In addition, the annual survey consisted of asking 938 residents living in NYC.  How such a limited number can lead to statements such as “Approximately three-quarters (73 percent) of New York City residents with annual household incomes less than $25,000 experienced difficulty affording food in 2008, up from 49 percent in 2003 (a 49 percent increase) and up from 57 percent since 2007 (a 28 percent increase)” is preposterous.  Granted such comparisons are done with their own surveys but overall, their findings and most numbers which were designed to shock the audience were taken from their own very limited outreach rather than an official survey.  If the speaker had talked more about their actual efforts rather than throwing out all these unbelievable numbers at me, I might have been more inclined to listen.

The second presentation was more intriguing; the speaker introduced programs such as: The City Farms; Fresh Foods for All; Community Food Education; Community Supported Agriculture.  She also spoke of food deserts and reaching out to NYC with better quality fruits and produce.  Just check out: www.justfood.org  Very interesting.