Here's how refugees in Utah often end up food insecure and how the problem will worsen.

Nasser Sharareh knows what it’s like to be food insecure as a newcomer to the United States.

Arriving from Iran as a student in 2014, he wasn’t eligible to use federal food programs, and he was unaware of community support systems that might have been able to help him access nutritional food.

Now a U.S. citizen and a research assistant professor of population health sciences at the University of Utah with a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, Sharareh has recently authored a study he called “shocking,” showing the struggles refugees in Utah face with food insecurity, when they are most at risk — and how refugees said they could best be helped.

But even with the newfound information, Sharareh said he is concerned that recent federal changes to supplemental nutrition assist