Prevalence and factors associated with food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Vicente A Benites-Zapata; Diego Urrunaga-Pastor; Mayra L Solorzano-Vargas; Percy Herrera-Añazco; Angela Uyen-Cateriano; Guido Bendezu-Quispe; Carlos J Toro-Huamanchumo; Adrian V Hernandez

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08091

Prevalence and factors associated with food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Heliyon. 2021 Oct;7(10):e08091. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08091. Epub 2021 Sep 30.

Authors

Vicente A Benites-Zapata^{1

2

3}, Diego Urrunaga-Pastor^{4

5}, Mayra L Solorzano-Vargas¹, Percy Herrera-Añazco^{2

5

6}, Angela Uyen-Cateriano⁷, Guido Bendezu-Quispe^{2

8}, Carlos J Toro-Huamanchumo^{1

9}, Adrian V Hernandez^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, Unidad para la Generación y Síntesis de Evidencias en Salud, Lima, Peru.
² Red Internacional en Salud Colectiva y Salud Intercultural, México, Mexico.
³ Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, Doctorado de Nutrición y Alimentos, Lima, Peru.
⁴ Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru.
⁵ Instituto de Evaluación de Tecnologías en Salud e Investigación - IETSI, EsSalud, Lima, Peru.
⁶ Universidad Privada San Juan Bautista, Lima, Peru.
⁷ Medecins Sans Frontieres, Health Politics, Brussels, Belgium.
⁸ Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener, Centro de Investigación Epidemiológica en Salud Global, Lima, Peru.
⁹ Clínica Avendaño, Unidad de Investigación Multidisciplinaria, Lima, Peru.
¹⁰ Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evidence Synthesis (HOPES) group, University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, Storrs, CT, USA.
¹¹ Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, Unidad de Revisiones Sistemáticas y Metaanálisis, Guías de Práctica Clínica y Evaluaciones Tecnológicas Sanitarias, Lima, Peru.

Abstract

Objective: We assessed the prevalence of food insecurity (FI) and its associated factors in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) early during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: We performed secondary data analysis of a survey conducted by Facebook and the University of Maryland. We included adults surveyed from April to May 2020. FI was measured by concerns about having enough to eat during the following week. Sociodemographic, mental health, and COVID-19-related variables were collected. We performed generalized Poisson regressions models considering the complex sampling design. We estimated crude and adjusted prevalence ratios with their 95% confidence intervals.

Results: We included 1,324,272 adults; 50.5% were female, 42.9% were under 35 years old, 78.9% lived in a city, and 18.6% had COVID-19 symptoms. The prevalence of food insecurity in LAC was 75.7% (n = 1,016,841), with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti with 90.8%, 86.7%, and 85.5%, respectively, showing the highest prevalence. Gender, area of residence, presence of COVID-19 symptoms, and fear of getting seriously ill or that a family member gets seriously ill from COVID-19 were associated with a higher prevalence of food insecurity. In contrast, increasing age was associated with a lower prevalence.

Conclusion: The prevalence of food insecurity during the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in LAC was high and was associated with sociodemographic and COVID-19-related variables.

Keywords: COVID-19; Food insecurity; Latin America; SARS-CoV-2.