Page 47 - IJPS-7-1

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Social support and food insecurity

among older Brazilians in São Paulo

Carolina Neves Freiria , Graziele Maria da Silva , Larissa Miho Hara ,
1
2
2
Flávia Silva Arbex Borim , Tábatta Renata Pereira de Brito ,
1
3
Ligiana Pires Corona *
2
1 Department of Gerontology, School of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas, São
Paulo, Brazil
2 School of Applied Sciences, University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
3 School of Nutrition, Federal University of Alfenas, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract: Food insecurity is a growing problem in Brazil, especially among older adults;
however, the related sociodemographic factors remain unclear. This study aimed to analyze
the relationship between social support dimensions and food insecurity among community-
dwelling older adult Brazilians in São Paulo. This cross-sectional study was conducted in three
cities in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The analysis included 598 community-dwelling individuals
aged ≥60-years-old, and multiple logistic regression models were used to estimate the
associations between the dimensions of social support and food insecurity after adjusting for
ARTICLE INFO sociodemographic characteristics. We found that 42.3% of participants were food insecure. In
the bivariate analysis, the higher scores in the affective, material, positive social interaction,
Received: June 8, 2022 and informational social support dimensions were statistically associated with the lower odds
Accepted: August 2, 2022 of food insecurity. In the multiple regression analysis, older adults who had a higher score
Published: August 17, 2022 of positive social interaction were less likely to have food insecurity, whereas the African
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR American ethnicity and those older adults with a total family income ≤2 times of the minimum
wage were more likely to have food insecurity. The results indicate that the positive social
Ligiana Pires Corona, interaction emerges as an important factor associated with food insecurity among older adults,
School of Applied Sciences,
University of Campinas, São beyond that of other well-known social factors associated with food insecurity, highlighting
Paulo, Brazil. the importance of screening for food insecurity and social support in primary care to avoid
ligiana.corona@fca.unicamp.br potential adverse health outcomes among older adults.
CITATION Keywords: Older adults; Social determinants of health; Nutrition; Food insecurity;
Freiria CN, da Silva GM, Social support; Brazil
Hara LM, et al. (2021). Social
support and food insecurity 1. Introduction
among older Brazilians in São
Paulo, International Journal of Food security and adequate nutrition are basic human rights and are important for health
Population Studies, 7(1):41-50. of population. However, the number of people with hunger and food insecurity is growing
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v7i1.1375
exponentially due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the
Copyright: ©2021 Freiria et al. current global economic crisis. Data from the latest report by the Food and Agriculture
This is an Open-Access article Organization (FAO) show that in 2020, approximately 2.37 billion people worldwide did
distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons not have access to adequate food – an increase of 320 million than in 2019 (FAO, IFAD,
Attribution-Non-Commercial UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, 2021), and the situation is getting worse since the beginning of
4.0 International License 2022 (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, 2022).
(http://creativecommons.org/ Food insecurity is characterized by the “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in
all non-commercial use,
distribution, and reproduction socially acceptable ways.” (Anderson, 1990, p1588). Data from the 2017 to 2018 Family
in any medium, provided the Budget Surveys (in Portuguese, Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares – POF) in Brazil
original work is properly cited. show that, after an upward trend in food security between 2004, 2009, and 2013, there

International Journal of Population Studies | 2021, Volume 7, Issue 1 41