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Risk factors for severe household food insecurity in rural South Haiti
Author(s) -
PerezEscamilla Rafael,
Dessalines Michael,
Finnigan Mousson,
HromiFiedler Amber,
Pachón Helena,
Gupta Nishang
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.23.1_supplement.918.7
Subject(s) - food insecurity , logistic regression , consumption (sociology) , demography , socioeconomics , geography , food consumption , food security , scale (ratio) , environmental health , medicine , economics , agricultural economics , agriculture , sociology , archaeology , social science , cartography
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is ravished by food insecurity (FI). A convenience sample of 149 households was studied to find out what the most significant independent factors associated with food insecurity in Haiti are. Household FI was assessed with the 16‐item ELCSA scale previously validated in the target communities. ELCSA's reference time period was the three months preceding the survey and it was answered by the mother. Households were categorized as either very FI (42.7%, ELCSA score range: 1‐10) or severely FI (57.3%, ELCSA score range: 11‐16). Multivariate logistic regression results indicated that landownership (OR: 0.18; 95% CI: 0.05‐0.68), trader‐headed household (vs. farmer) (0.09; 0.01‐0.58), and lower frequency of rice consumption (0.17; 0.05‐0.52) were associated with lower risk of severe FI. Lunch (6.9, 1.8‐27.0) and dinner skipping (16.5, 2.4‐114.5), female index child (3.2, 1.1‐9.4) and larger household size (3.4, 1.0‐11.5) increased the risk of severe FI. These findings suggest that policies that increase landownership and occupation status are likely to reduce household food insecurity. Funded by the AgroSalud Project (CIDA # 7034161).