Kathy Krey, Ph.D. 
Director of Research and Assistant Research Professor, Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University | Baylor University
Waco, TX, UNITED STATES
Dr. Krey focuses on food security topics, including child nutrition programs, coalition building, and data analysis and mapping
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Biography
Kathy Krey is the Director of Research and Assistant Research Professor for the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University. She oversees a diverse portfolio of research and evaluation projects on food security topics, including child nutrition programs, coalition building, and data analysis and mapping. She has served as a university research analyst and adjunct faculty member and worked for management consulting firms as a marketing communications professional. Dr. Krey has testified before the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee and the National Commission on Hunger on the importance of public-private partnerships and child nutrition programs. Dr. Krey is married to Conner Krey and they are the proud parents of Elliott (2006), Oliver (2006), and Hazel (2010).
Industry Expertise (1)
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise (7)
Research Methods
Nutrition
Hunger Policy
Social Work
Data Analysis & Mapping
Program Evaluation
Food Insecurity
Education (3)
Baylor University: Ph. D.
Baylor University: M. A.
Baylor University: B. B. A.
Links (1)
Media Appearances (10)
Programs, research, congregations key to fighting hunger
Baptist Standard online
2022-10-10
Jeremy Everett, founder and executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, Kathy Krey, Ph.D., assistant research professor and senior director of research and administration at BCHP, and Stephanie Boddie, Ph.D., assistant professor of church and community ministries at Truett Seminary, discussed food insecurity and how organizations can more effectively move forward during a panel discussion at the No Need Among You Conference at First Baptist Church in Waco.
Baylor professor receives $5 million grant from USDA
Baylor Lariat print
2019-09-30
Kathy Krey, Ph.D., assistant research professor and director of research and administration for Baylor’s Texas Hunger Initiative, has been awarded a $5 million grant from the USDA. The grant will be used to fund a three-year research project that will improve the accessibility and distribution of food for students living in rural parts of Texas during the summer.
Meals By Mail Could Help Feed Rural Kids During Summer
Texas Standard radio
2019-09-25
AUDIO: Kathy Krey, Ph.D., assistant research professor and director of research and administration for Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative, is interviewed on the Texas Standard, a daily news magazine that airs on public radio stations throughout Texas, about her research project on expanding summer food access for rural students through a meal-delivery program. Krey has received a $5 million grant from the USDA for her research project.
Baylor's Texas Hunger Initiative testing rural meal delivery to keep children fed during summer
Waco Tribune-Herald print
2019-09-25
Children in rural areas of Texas got about 32,000 boxes of food in the mail this past summer as part of a research effort by Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative. Kathy Krey, Ph.D., assistant research professor and director of research and administration for THI, has received a $5 million grant from the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service for her research, which is intended to improve children’s access to adequate nutrition during the summer in rural areas.
Baylor Faculty Member Earns $5 Million Grant to Study Meal Deliveries for Rural Students
Baylor Media and Public Relations online
2019-09-24
Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative has taken an important step this week in helping move the University towards its Research 1/Tier 1 aspirations with the announcement of a $5 million grant to expand access to food for students living in rural Texas communities. Kathy Krey, Ph.D., assistant research professor and director of research and administration for Baylor’s Texas Hunger Initiative, has been awarded the three-year grant from the United States Department of Agriculture for a research project aimed at testing a novel approach to distributing food during the summer to rural students age 18 and under. The grant is from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service.
News Roundup: More Texas Students are Eating Free Breakfast at School
Texas Standard
2018-03-19
Texas is getting closer to a goal of having 70 percent of eligible students participate in the federal School Breakfast Program – a benchmark that anti-hunger advocates have set nationwide. Dr. Kathy Krey with Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative says “we’ve really seen a steady increase in school breakfast participation – and we’re currently at almost 63 percent.”
Texas School Breakfast Report Card Shows State Improving in Breakfast Participation
Baylor Media Communications
2018-03-15
“We’re able to step back and look at this data as a whole, which allows us to see which schools are having success and how to replicate that,” said Kathy Krey, Ph.D., director of the Texas Hunger Initiative. “Then we’re able to offer guidance and resources to help schools across Texas—and the U.S.—increase participation in school breakfast, improve their performance, and ultimately, reduce childhood food insecurity.”...
Texas Hunger Initiative receives grant to help combat hunger
Baylor Lariat
2017-03-31
THI is a capacity-building organization, meaning that they work with other organizations to increase collaboration and use existing resources efficiently, director of THI Dr. Kathy Krey said. THI works at the local, state and federal level to combat hunger through community engagement, developing policy and research, Krey said. It started out with an emphasis on combating child hunger, Krey said, but has extended its work to address hunger affecting families and senior citizens...
Where Travel Is a Barrier, Food Trucks Roll in To Feed Kids
CityLab
2016-06-14
“When we looked at the whole host of these variables, the transportation variables were consistently significant as predictors of which tracts had sites,” says Kathy Krey, the research director at the Texas Hunger Initiative who coauthored the study...
Lack of Transportation Hampers Hungry Children from Receiving Free Summer Meals, a Study by Baylor’s Texas Hunger Initiative Finds
Baylor Media Communications
2016-06-09
“This is important work,” said Kathy Krey, Ph.D., research director of Texas Hunger Initiative (THI). “For years, we’ve heard from those who work with the summer meals program that transportation is a barrier. But this is the first published study looking at the Summer Meals program that corroborates this anecdotal evidence: transportation is a problem.”...
Articles (4)
The effect of universal-free school breakfast on milk consumption and nutrient intake
Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary JournalKrey, K. & Nolen, E
2015 Eating breakfast is associated with positive outcomes for children including increased nutrient intake (Bhattacharya, Currie, and Haider 2004) and milk intake (Condon, Crepinsek, and Fox 2009), enhanced cognitive performance and memory (Mahoney et al. 2005;), and improved academic performance (Hoyland, Dye, and Lawton 2009; Kleinman et al. 2002; Murphy et al. 1998). The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) School Breakfast Program (SBP) is a federally assisted meal program designed to provide students in public and nonprofit private schools access to breakfast. Children living in households with income that is at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for free school meals and children living in households with income between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty level qualify for reduced-price meals...
Associations Between Neighborhoods and Summer Meals Sites: Measuring Access to Federal Summer Meals Programs
Journal of Applied Research on ChildrenWilkerson, R., Khaife, D. & Krey, K.
2015 While the challenge of access to healthy food features prominently in the literature, access to federal nutrition programs, specifically USDA’s Summer Meals Program, is relatively undocumented. Participation in the program depends on a number of complex variables, including site availability, neighborhood dynamics, and community investment. The purpose of this study is to determine neighborhood indicators that correlate with the coverage and density of summer meals sites in Texas. Attributes of the community and the number of meal sites were collected at the census tract level, and paired t-tests revealed the statistical significance of differences between tracts with and without meal sites. We also implemented a regression model to predict the number of sites within a tract as a function of neighborhood variables. Urban areas have the greatest access to summer meals sites, while access is limited in suburban and rural areas. In general, method of transportation proved significant. We find that the site coverage and density in areas of different urbanicity depends on the availability of transportation.
One Missed Call: Measure of Cell Phone Usage in an RDD Telephone Survey
Journal of Applied Social ScienceMatos, J. & Krey, K.
2008 Telephone products such as answering machines, caller-ID services, and cell phones simplify modern-day life yet present an increasing challenge for survey researchers. In particular, contact and response rates have suffered due to changes in telephone usage patterns. To understand the effect that these technologies have on our research center, we examine cell phones, whose growing presence stands to greatly impact survey research. Through an RDD telephone survey, we examined cell phone usage, screening behavior of unknown numbers, reactions to survey research, and incentives, as well as potential cell phone behavior...
The significance of place: A multilevel analysis situating trust in a community context
Baylor UniversityKrey, K.
2008 The alleged decline of social capital is a source of considerable debate and research within the social sciences. Defined loosely as the intrinsic value of networks, social capital connects citizens and promotes a healthy society. This emphasis on the value of social capital helped launch trust to the forefront of national attention and concern. Trust is essential to social capital as the process of building relationships and maintaining connections would not be possible without it. Research has yet to fully investigate and establish the sources of social trust leaving inadequate knowledge of the circumstances under which it may exist. This study of a large recent social capital survey demonstrates that, controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and location factors, being involved in society is positively associated with social trust. However, by considering community level variables like poverty, education, urbanization and violent crime, it is clear that involvement’s effect on social trust is mediated at the group level. Therefore, community level characteristics cannot be ignored as important factors that have the power to influence an individual’s social trust levels.
