Household food security in an urban slum: Determinants and trends

As we are moving from millennium development goals to sustainable development goals, food insecurity is imposing a formidable challenge to the policymakers, especially in developing countries such as India. A survey conducted in the urban slum areas of Vellore district, 6 years back, had reported food insecurity as high as 75%. The current study was a resurvey to assess the food security status in the aforementioned area.

A community-based survey was conducted in which data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire from 150 households, selected through multistaged cluster sampling, who had given oral consent to be a part of the survey. The prevalence of food security calculated from this study was compared with the results from a previous survey to look for any significant improvement.

Nearly 42.7% of the households were food secure, while 26.7% were food insecure without hunger and 30.6% were food insecure with some degree of hunger. Low socioeconomic status (odds ratio [OR]: 3.25, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.29-8.16; P < 0.012) and presence of debt (OR: 3.84, 95% CI: 1.90-7.73; P < 0.001) were the major risk factors for food insecurity. A comparison with the findings from the previous study has shown a statistically significant improvement in food security from 25.4% to 42.7% (Chi-square: 27.072, df: 2, P < 0.0001).

Although food security levels have shown marked improvement over the years, much needs to be done for India to be free from the shackles of hunger.