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Small area vulnerability, household food insecurity and child malnutrition in Medellin, Colombia: results from a repeated cross-sectional study
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Small area vulnerability, household food insecurity and child malnutrition in Medellin, Colombia: results from a repeated cross-sectional study

Hugo-Alejandro Santa-Ramírez, Gabriel-Jaime Otálvaro-Castro, Stéphane Joost, Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez, Usama Bilal and Silvia Stringhini
The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, v 23
Jul 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2023.100521
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2023.100521View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0,  Open

Abstract

Children Deprivation Food insecurity Malnutrition Modes of living Small-area vulnerability
Malnutrition and food insecurity might be driven not only by individual factors but also by contextual conditions, such as area-level deprivation or vulnerability. This study aimed to analyze the association between area-level vulnerability and i) household food insecurity and ii) malnutrition in children in Medellin, Colombia, during the years 2017 and 2018. We obtained data from two different sources: the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) and the nutrition surveillance system of Medellin. The main outcomes were food insecurity in households with children and anthropometric indicators for children under five. The main predictor was area-level vulnerability. Mixed effects Poisson regression with robust standard errors models were conducted to test the association of quintiles of deprivation with each outcome. Households with children living in areas with the highest deprivation had 1.9 times the prevalence of food insecurity as compared to those living in areas with the lowest deprivation (PR 1.91, 95% CI 1.42–2.57). Similar results were observed for underweight/risk of underweight (PR 1.26, 95% CI 1.11–1.42), stunting/risk of stunting (PR 1.36, 95% CI 1.22–1.53) and stunting (PR 1.93 95% CI 1.55–2.39) among children under five. We found no consistent associations with wasting/risk of wasting or excess weight/risk of overweight across quintiles of deprivation. This study sheds light on the role of area-level vulnerability on malnutrition in children in Medellin, Colombia, showing a pattern of increasing prevalence of food insecurity, underweight and stunting by quintile of deprivation. Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) and Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research (CHAIN).

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4 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#2 Zero Hunger
#1 No Poverty

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Health Care Sciences & Services
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
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