DefinePK

Abstract

Introduction


Food security includes at a minimum, "the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways". Food insecurity is "Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways". Hunger is "The uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food. The recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food. may produce malnutrition over time".1 Food insecurity, the least severe condition, consists mainly of anxiety about having enough food to eat or running out of food and having no money to purchase more. Adults who believe they are food insecure may try to avoid hunger by cutting the size of meals, skipping meals, or even going without food for one or more days. However, when food is extremely limited, these means to avoid hunger are ineffective and cause severe personal hunger and hunger that spreads to the family and children.2,3In developing countries, growth in urban poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition and a shift in their concentration from rural to urban areas will accompany urbanization.4 Haddad et al used survey data on poverty (from 8 countries) and on child under nutrition (from 14 countries) to address this question.5 Using data from the past 15-20 years, they found that in a majority of countries the absolute number of poor and undernourished individuals living in urban areas has increased, as has the share of poverty and undernourishment coming from urban areas. There is surprisingly little research on urban poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition. Intra-urban differences are not sufficiently highlighted. Too often, all urban households-rich and poor-are averaged out to provide one single estimate of poverty or malnutrition. In countries with high income and social inequalities this can be particularly misleading These trends indicate need for more research on these issues.Development and use of appropriate methods is essential for monitoring of food security. Type of indicators used for assessing food insecurity could be categorized as "process indicators" - those that describe food supply and food access-and "outcome indicators" that describe food consumption.6 Process indicators are insufficient to characterize food security outcomes. Chung et al7 found that there was little correlation between a very large set of process indicators and measures of food security outcomes. Correlation between area-level food production and household food security was also observed to be low.8 The four simple ways of measuring household food security outcomes are individual intakes, household caloric acquisition, dietary diversity, and indices of household coping strategies).9 Use of such qualitative measures has proved to be successful in USA, and could also be adapted for rapid and valid assessment household food insecurity in developing countries.10-12In Pakistan some assessment of household food security has been done of rural households but very little information is available on food security status of urban households. No assessment of food insecurity had been done yet on the basis of qualitative measures. Since the 1960s the UN has been working in Pakistan towards improved food security and FAO identifies the lack of data availability (in quantity and quality) as a serious problem. It has been acknowledged that in Pakistan "there is little direct data on coping mechanisms. This is an area where primary data might have to be collected". Need for assessment of urban food insecurity has also been highlighted in FAO country strategy plan.13This project was planned to measuring household food insecurity outcomes in one of the most urbanized city of Pakistan - Karachi, on the basis of a few qualitative measures.