Factors related to household food insecurity in the Republic of Korea

Abstract

Objective: To examine the prevalence of food insecurity and to identify factors that contribute to it in the Republic of Korea. Design: A cross-sectional study. Setting: Data were selected from a secondary data set, the third Korean Welfare Panel Study. Household food insecurity was measured with a six-item Korean version of the US Household Food Security Survey Module. The differences in proportions or means of household characteristics, householder's characteristics, economic status and social benefits by food insecurity status were tested with the x 2 or t test. The independent associations of food insecurity with each characteristic were assessed with multivariate logistic regression analysis. Subjects: The sample size consisted of 6238 households. Results: The prevalence of food insecurity was 5?3 % among all households and 25?7 % among low-income households. Risk factors that were associated with a higher risk of food insecurity included living alone, unemployment, no job, low household income and living in a leased or rented home. For low-income households, living in a leased or rented home increased the risk of food insecurity. Among food-insecure households, 26?1 % of the full sample of households and 34?3 % of low-income households were participating in food assistance programmes. Conclusions: Food insecurity among the Korean population was related to household type, income, job status and housing. Food assistance programmes were not enough to completely alleviate food insecurity.

Household food insecurity and dietary intake in Korea: results from the 2012 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

“…Therefore, food assistance programmes are needed for food-insecure household with children and the elderly. It has been suggested that food insecurity is affected by the socio-economic status of the household and householders (8,17,18,25) . In the present study, food-insecure households showed a higher proportion of individuals living alone, lone parents or grandparent-headed families compared with food-secure households.…”

“…Households were classified into a food-secure group if the total score was ≤2 and a food-insecure group if the total score was ≥3. Foodinsecure households were further classified into three groups according to the severity of food insecurity as follows: food-insecure without hunger (score of 3-5), moderate food-insecure with hunger (score of 6-8) and severe food-insecure with hunger (score of 9-10) for households without children; and food-insecure without hunger (score of 3-7), moderate food-insecure with hunger (score of [8][9][10][11][12] and severe food-insecure with hunger (score of [13][14][15][16][17][18] for households with children. There were few households classified as severe food-insecure.…”

“…In order to develop strategies or programmes to assist vulnerable individuals with food insecurity, the prevalence of people with food insecurity first needs to be identified using a validated questionnaire among a representative sample of the Korean population and then their dietary intake should be evaluated through comparison with the population who have food security. However, previous studies on food insecurity in South Korea were conducted in socially disadvantaged classes or in a rural area (5)(6)(7)(8) .…”

Food acquisition through private and public social networks and its relationship with household food security among various socioeconomic statuses in South Korea

“…The authors discussed that the government food assistance is not sufficient to alleviate food insecurity among low-income participants, or the participants do not have enough skills in purchasing and cooking the available food provided by the government [13,37,38]. A previous study conducted in South Korea also showed that food assistance programs did not alleviate household food insecurity [10].…”

“…Food insecurity has been found to be associated with various conditions, including chronic disease [3], obesity [4][5][6], undernutrition [7,8] and risk of depression and anxiety [9]. Factors that are associated with food insecurity include low household income, low education level, living alone, unemployment, distance traveled to purchase food and no home ownership [10,11].…”