TY - JOUR
T1 - Food insecurity measurement and prevalence estimates during the COVID-19 pandemic in a repeated cross-sectional survey in Mexico
AU - Gaitán-Rossi, Pablo
AU - Vilar-Compte, Mireya
AU - Teruel, Graciela
AU - Pérez-Escamilla, Rafael
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements: The authors thank Victor Hugo Pérez Hernández, researcher at EQUIDE, for his leadership in collecting the ENCOVID-19 data. The authors acknowledge Jesús David Aban-Tamayo for his help with the ENSANUT 2018 data management. Financial support: The ENCOVID-19 has been funded by several institutions. The April wave was financed by Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City. The May and June waves were financed by UNICEF and the Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (OEI) Mexico. Universidad Iberoamericana, UNICEF and OEI had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. Conflict of interest: None. Authorship: P.G.R. design, analysis, data interpretation and drafting of the manuscript. M.V.C. design, data interpretation and drafting of the manuscript. G.T.B. design and data acquisition of the ENCOVID-19 and critical revision of intellectual content. R.P.E. conception of the article, data interpretation and critical revision of intellectual content. Ethics of human subject participation: The current study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki, and all procedures involving research study participants were approved by the Universidad Iberoamericana Research Ethics Committee (registry: CONBIOÉTICA-09—CEI-008-2016060). Verbal informed consent was obtained from all subjects/patients. Verbal consent was witnessed and formally recorded.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society.
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - Objective: To validate the telephone modality of the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA) included in three waves of a phone survey to estimate the monthly household food insecurity prevalence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico. Design: We examined the reliability and internal validity of the ELCSA scale in three repeated waves of cross-sectional surveys with Rasch models. We estimated the monthly prevalence of food insecurity in the general population and in households with and without children and compared them with a national 2018 survey. We tested concurrent validity by testing associations of food insecurity with socio-economic status and anxiety. Setting: ENCOVID-19 is a monthly telephone cross-sectional survey collecting information on the well-being of Mexican households during the pandemic lockdown. Surveys used probabilistic samples, and we used data from April (n 833), May (n 850) and June 2020 (n 1674). Participants: Mexicans 18 years or older who had a mobile telephone. Results: ELCSA had an adequate model fit and food insecurity was associated, within each wave, with more poverty and anxiety. The COVID-19 lockdown was associated with an important reduction in food security, decreasing stepwise from 38·9 % in 2018 to 24·9 % in June 2020 in households with children. Conclusions: Telephone surveys were a feasible strategy to monitor reductions in food security during the COVID-19 lockdown.
AB - Objective: To validate the telephone modality of the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA) included in three waves of a phone survey to estimate the monthly household food insecurity prevalence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico. Design: We examined the reliability and internal validity of the ELCSA scale in three repeated waves of cross-sectional surveys with Rasch models. We estimated the monthly prevalence of food insecurity in the general population and in households with and without children and compared them with a national 2018 survey. We tested concurrent validity by testing associations of food insecurity with socio-economic status and anxiety. Setting: ENCOVID-19 is a monthly telephone cross-sectional survey collecting information on the well-being of Mexican households during the pandemic lockdown. Surveys used probabilistic samples, and we used data from April (n 833), May (n 850) and June 2020 (n 1674). Participants: Mexicans 18 years or older who had a mobile telephone. Results: ELCSA had an adequate model fit and food insecurity was associated, within each wave, with more poverty and anxiety. The COVID-19 lockdown was associated with an important reduction in food security, decreasing stepwise from 38·9 % in 2018 to 24·9 % in June 2020 in households with children. Conclusions: Telephone surveys were a feasible strategy to monitor reductions in food security during the COVID-19 lockdown.
KW - COVID-19
KW - ELCSA
KW - Food security
KW - Mexico
KW - Validity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85095427085&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S1368980020004000
DO - 10.1017/S1368980020004000
M3 - Article
C2 - 33050968
AN - SCOPUS:85095427085
SN - 1368-9800
VL - 24
SP - 412
EP - 421
JO - Public Health Nutrition
JF - Public Health Nutrition
IS - 3
ER -