Food Acquisition through Private and Public Social Networks and Its Relationship with Household Food Security among Various Socioeconomic Statuses in South Korea

Burden of dental caries in individuals experiencing food insecurity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

CONTEXT

Food insecurity affects approximately 2.37 billion people worldwide. Individuals experiencing food insecurity are more likely to exhibit poor health-related endpoints. Dental caries, a highly prevalent noncommunicable disease, is modulated by an interplay between biological, behavioral, and environmental factors.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess whether individuals experiencing food insecurity were more likely to exhibit dental caries than individuals facing food security.

DATA SOURCES

The Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Ovid, CINAHL, LILACS, and APA PsycINFO databases were checked from inception to November 2021. Grey literature and Google Scholar were also examined. An updated search was conducted in August 2022. Observational studies were included if they evaluated the association between dental caries and food insecurity status.

DATA EXTRACTION

Data extraction was performed by two reviewers.

DATA ANALYSIS

Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted using R language. In total, 514 references were retrieved from databases, of which 14 articles were included in qualitative synthesis and 7 were merged into meta-analysis. The results of an inverse-variance meta-analysis (OR = 1.62; 95%CI, 1.01-2.60) and a meta-analysis of binary data (OR = 1.66; 95%CI, 1.36-2.02) demonstrated that food-insecure individuals were more likely to exhibit dental caries than food-secure individuals. Inverse-variance meta-analyses appraising multiple strata of food security also showed that individuals experiencing marginal food security (OR = 1.48; 95%CI, 1.28-1.72), individuals experiencing low food security (OR = 1.26; 95%CI, 1.01-1.57), and those experiencing very low food security (OR = 1.33; 95%CI, 1.04-1.71) were more likely to exhibit dental caries than individuals experiencing full food security.

CONCLUSION

Dental caries is associated with food insecurity. Individuals living with food insecurity are more likely to exhibit dental caries than those who have food security.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION

PROSPERO registration number CRD42021268582.

Impacts of community-level grassroots organizations on household food security during the COVID-19 epidemic period in China

Purchasing food via community-level grassroots organizations was a new pattern of food patronage for Wuhan residents during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, but little attention was paid to it. The study examined the relationship between community-level grassroots organizations and household food insecurity based on an online survey of household food insecurity in Wuhan in March 2020. The study found that problems in all three domains of food insecurity including food anxiety, insufficient quality and inadequate quantity existed but were uneven. Community-level grassroots organizations played an important role in promoting food security including reducing worries about food supply and providing enough food intake, but did not ensure households had adequate food quality due to increasing food prices, fewer varieties of food and decreased food freshness. Compared to other grassroots organizations, the community committee had actually become an extension of the government to run administrative grassroots affairs before the epidemic, so its tight relationship with local government made it become the major grassroots power in ensuring household food security at the residential community level.

Do Where The Elderly Live Matter? Factors Associated with Diet Quality among Korean Elderly Population Living in Urban Versus Rural Areas

This study aimed to examine whether there is an area difference on diet quality among the Korean elderly population. The effect of personal factors on diet quality is also estimated and compared between rural and urban areas. A cross-sectional data from the 2013-2015 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) was used for this study. The participants were older adults aged ≥ 65 years (n = 3207) who participated in the KNHANES. Urban and rural areas classified the region and the Korean Healthy Eating Index (KHEI) assessed the diet quality. Personal factors that were related to diet quality included socio-demographic factors, health behaviors, and health conditions. This study found that the diet quality was different between urban and rural areas in the Korean elderly population, showing a higher mean of KHEI scores in urban areas than rural areas (67.3 for urban seniors, 63.6 for rural seniors, p < 0.001), and the regional difference was still significant, even after adjusting for the personal factors (p < 0.001). Different sets of personal factors were found to be significant that explain the diet quality of participants between areas, such as economic resources, walking exercise, and perceived oral health status in urban areas, and age and food insecurity in rural areas. In conclusions, this study found that there was a regional disparity in diet quality and some personal factors affecting diet quality were dependent on areas, which implied that regional environment with diverse contexts could influence diet quality. These findings emphasize the need to provide targeted intervention programs that take into account both the characteristics of individuals and local food environments in order to improve the overall diet quality in older adults.