Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book The Role of Household Food Insecurity Access, Socioeconomic Status and Dietary Diversity as Underlying Determinants of Undernutrition in Pakistani Households written by Naila Ansari and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Child undernutrition and food security are serious problems facing Pakistan. It is estimated that almost three-quarters of the Pakistani population live below the poverty line of $2 income per day. With household food insecurity as an underlying determinant of undernutrition, our first study's aim was to adapt and validate the global nine-question Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) version 3 for use in Pakistan. We concluded that the HFIAS was reflective of the three domains of food insecurity access (anxiety and uncertainty about the household food supply; inadequate food quality; and insufficient food intake), and could be used by policymakers and researchers to identify and target groups for food insecurity reduction programs. There is little consensus in defining socioeconomic status (SES) and researchers collect a plethora of information to account for SES, but few studies efficiently utilize the information collected. Our 2nd study aim was to demonstrate the usefulness of principal component analysis in identifying useful SES indicators to develop a meaningful SES index in rural, periurban and urban areas of Pakistan. Our index did not load heavily on tangible assets and/or the presence of livestock, even in rural areas, as some studies on health inequalities have shown. Instead, we found the largest variance was explained by the frequency of purchasing basic commodities of oil, sugar, tea and wheat, as well as the health-seeking behavior of children under five and pregnant women. Lastly, with strong evidence supporting the association of dietary diversity and improved nutritional status, we used Pakistan's National Nutrition Survey 2001-2002 to characterize dietary factors associated with anemia in young Pakistani children between 6 and 59 months of age. Our results confirmed that irrespective of age group, a majority of Pakistani children were being fed a monotonous diet. In our final multivariate logistic regression model, children reportedly not consuming egg(s) or whose mother was unable to identify dark green leafy vegetables as a source of dietary iron were twice as likely to be anemic, after adjusting for the child's age.