Citation

Kulkarni S, Frongillo E, Naved R, Ekström EC. FASEB J. 2015; 29(Suppl 1): e898.3.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Low food security is highly prevalent in Bangladesh. Pregnant women are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of food insecurity on maternal and child health and nutrition. While socioeconomic status (SES) is a known determinant of food security, limited evidence is available on how women's economic autonomy, education, and experience of domestic violence are associated with food security. We aimed to quantify how these measures were associated with food security after accounting for SES. We used data from 3870 pregnant women from the Maternal and Infant Nutrition Intervention (MINIMat) study in Matlab, Bangladesh. We performed multiple linear regression analysis with full information maximum likelihood to account for missing data assumed to be missing at random on household food security scores that were based on a context-specific questionnaire developed for Bangladesh. SES, women's age, education, lifetime experience of domestic violence, and household economic autonomy were significant determinants of household food security (p<0.05). One standard deviation (SD) higher SES, education, and economic autonomy corresponded to 0.46, 0.07, and 0.08 SD higher food security, respectively. One SD higher domestic violence score was associated with a 0.06 SD lower food security. These results suggest that empowering women can increase food security even if SES does not improve. Understanding how to empower women in their context is essential to designing effective food-security interventions.

Language: en