Perceived neighbourhood food access is associated with consumption of animal-flesh food, fruits and vegetables among mothers and young children in peri-urban Cambodia

Abstract

Objective: To examine whether mothers’ perceived neighborhood food access is associated with their own and their young children’s consumption of animal-flesh food, fruits and vegetables in peri-urban areas of Cambodia. Design: A cross-sectional survey measured food consumption frequency and perceived neighborhood food access, the latter including six dimensions of food availability, affordability, convenience, quality, safety and desirability. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the association between food access and food consumption. Setting: Peri-urban districts of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodia Participants: 198 mothers of children between 6 to 24 months old. Results: Over 25% of the mothers and 40% of the children had low consumption (< once a day) of either animal-flesh food or fruits and vegetables. Compared with perceived high food access, perceived low food access was associated with an adjusted 5.6-fold and 4.3-fold greater odds of low animal-flesh food consumption among mothers (95% CI 2.54, 12.46) and children (95% CI 2.20, 8.60) respectively. Similarly, relative to perceived high access, perceived low food access was associated with 7.6-times and 5.1-times higher adjusted odds of low fruits and vegetables consumption among mothers (95% CI 3.22, 18.02) and children (95% CI 2.69, 9.83) respectively. Conclusions: Mothers’ perceived neighborhood food access was an important predictor of their own and their young children’s nutrient-rich food consumption in peri-urban Cambodia. Future work is needed to confirm our findings in other urban settings and examine the role of neighborhood food environment on the consumption of both nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor food.

Understanding maternal food choice for preschool children across urban–rural settings in Vietnam

“…All mothers in our study had physical access to a range of nutritious fresh food and nutrient-poor packaged products, which were supplied mostly through informal food markets, backyard gardens, home shops and street food vendors. Such heterogeneity in the food environment, which has been documented in other LMIC (Duong et al, 2022;Downs et al, 2020), helped mothers in our study procure food that fit their budget and preferences. This finding suggests a caution to the recent policy in Vietnam that aimed to modernise food retails, promote supermarkets and tighten regulations of informal markets, which could limit choices for mothers (MoIT, 2009;Moustier, 2006).…”

Quantitative risk assessment of salmonellosis in Cambodian consumers through chicken and pork salad consumption

“…Earlier studies found that meat and vegetables were frequently contaminated with Salmonella at this level (Rortana et al, 2021;Schwan et al, 2021). People in urban and peri-urban areas commonly purchase meat in the morning and cook it the same day (Brown et al, 2022;Rortana et al, 2022), while people in rural areas often keep meat longer before cooking (Duong et al, 2022). The focus of this QMRA was on meat purchased in the traditional value chain, as this is still the most common source of food in Cambodia, and where the prevalence was found the highest (Rortana et al, 2021).…”

“…In Cambodia, there is a lack of comprehensive and solid evidence on the impact of FBD that can guide policymakers on health hazards related risks, and support meat production and donors to tackle food safety issues and public health notices (Tum, 2008;Public Health of Canada, 2017;Lam et al, 2019). Moreover, the household knowledge of FBD is low in Cambodia, and most people associate food safety challenges mainly with chemical contamination (Brown et al, 2022;Duong et al, 2022). This study aimed to estimate the risk of consumers acquiring .…”

Food Safety in Low and Middle Income Countries

“…Storing of meat in warm temperatures provides good conditions for the growth of Salmonella (Possas et al, 2017;. Improper handling and poor practices also contribute to the transmission of bacteria along the food chain, especially from markets to ready-to-eat (RTE) foods (Kristina and Sophal, 2018)). In addition, recent studies have found that poor handling of meat before and during cooking causes bacterial cross-contamination to RTE food, including chicken salad in Cambodia (Rortana et al, 2022) and boiled pork in Vietnam (Dang- .…”

“…Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) can estimate health consequences and help in food safety management and communication. In Cambodia, QMRA has been conducted on Salmonella and different hazards and food type, but there are, to our knowledge, no publications on the risk of salmonellosis related to chicken meat or pork (Tum, 2008;Kristina and Sophal, 2018;Walia et al, 2018;Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2021) although QMRA models of salmonellosis have been developed in other countries (Dang- Perez-Rodriguez, 2020;Oscar, 2021a,b).…”