Risco de insegurança alimentar e associação com fatores sociodemográficos em domicílios com crianças de um município no sul de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Although Brazil is one of the world's largest food producers, a large portion of its population lives in some degree of food insecurity. Small municipalities in the country have low data regarding the situational diagnosis of their territories, not assessing potential food insecurity risks in their population, meaning that many municipalities do not identify where people at risk are located. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association of food insecurity risk (FI) with sociodemographic factors in households with children aged 0 to 36 months in the city of Lavras, Minas Gerais. The study population consisted of 323 families with children between 0 and 36 months old in their family nucleus. Quantitative approach methodologies and instruments validated by scientific literature were used for data collection. Data were collected in the household environment and in Family Health Strategies (FHS). To evaluate the socioeconomic profile, a semi-structured questionnaire was elaborated to obtain variables such as sex of the responsible person, child's sex, mother's or responsible person's skin color, child's skin color, child's age, marital status, education level, household income, number of residents in the household, and access to the federal income transfer program Bolsa Família. For the evaluation of household FI risk, the Screening for Food Insecurity Risk (SFIR) was applied, a two-question questionnaire validated by the literature. The SFIR questions are: 1. In the last three months, did your food run out before you had money to buy more? 2. In the last three months, did you eat only a few kinds of foods because you were running out of money? The database was structured in wide format using Epi-info 7.1.5 software. Descriptive analysis was used for data presentation, and the association between FI risk and sociodemographic variables was verified through the chi-square test (p <0.05) using Stata software, version 13.1. Based on the data obtained, it was found that the association with food insecurity risk was proportionally higher in low-income families, being the sociodemographic indicator that presented a higher proportion of FI risk; and responsible persons who referred to their skin color as "non-white" showed a higher proportion of families at risk of food insecurity; while responsible persons with more years of education, living without a partner, and without Bolsa Família, showed an association with FI risk. This study may contribute to bringing visibility to issues related to the topic of Food and Nutritional Security (FNS).