The association of the quality of life with Afghan households' food insecurity before and after the recent political change in Afghanistan: a comparative analysis

Jumakhan Saif-Nijat; Mohammad Reza Pakravan-Charvadeh; Saeed Gholamrezai; Mehdi Rahimian; Ginny Lane; Daniel Béland; Mustafa Koc; Nancy Clark; Nasrin Omidvar; Rasoul Sadeghi; Hassan Vatanparast

doi:10.1186/s12889-023-16967-z

The association of the quality of life with Afghan households' food insecurity before and after the recent political change in Afghanistan: a comparative analysis

BMC Public Health. 2023 Oct 23;23(1):2066. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-16967-z.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran.
² Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran. pakravan.m@lu.ac.ir.
³ College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA.
⁴ Department of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
⁵ Department of Sociology, Centre for Studies in Food Security, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson University), Toronto, Canada.
⁶ Faculty of Human and Social Development, School of Nursing, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
⁷ Department of Community Nutrition, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute (NNFTRI), Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tajrish, Velenjak, Iran.
⁸ Faculty of Social Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
⁹ College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. vatan.h@usask.ca.

Abstract

The overreaching objective of the current study is to investigate the association of quality of life with Afghan households' food insecurity. The data was collected immediately after the Taliban took control of a large part of Afghanistan. About a total of 555 households' heads participated in a face-to-face interview, using the HFIAS and WHOQOL-100 questionnaires along with some questions related to their socioeconomic characteristics at two different times, before and after the Taliban's takeover. The comparative analysis showed that 98% of Afghan households were food insecure after the Taliban takeover, while 70% of them faced food insecurity before the Taliban's takeover. The quality of life in the Taliban era is worse than before the Taliban. All dimensions of quality of life have decreased, and this decrease was more pronounced for the psychological, environmental, and physical domains. It is recommended that international organizations, NGOs, and local agents focus on these dimensions of the quality of life to improve food security.

Keywords: Afghanistan; Food security; Quality of life; Taliban’s takeover.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Afghanistan
Family Characteristics*
Food Insecurity
Food Supply
Humans
Quality of Life*
Socioeconomic Factors