Exploring food security/insecurity determinants within Venezuela's complex humanitarian emergency.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Sociology
• Economics

Background:

• Venezuela's ongoing humanitarian crisis has severely impacted citizens' quality of life.
• Widespread food insecurity and mass migration (nearly 6 million people) are significant consequences.
• Deterioration of living standards necessitates an analysis of household food security.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze food security in Venezuelan households.
• To identify determinant factors influencing food security.
• To inform the design of evidence-based public policies.

Main Methods:

• A national non-probabilistic survey of 2,041 urban and non-urban households.
• Descriptive statistics and Food Security Index (FSI) analysis using World Food Program (WFP) methodology.
• Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) for variable influence analysis.

Main Results:

• Only 9% of households were food secure; 22% faced moderate to severe food insecurity.
• Food consumption score (FCS) was the strongest predictor of food security.
• Coping strategies and percentage of spending on food also significantly influenced food security levels.

Conclusions:

• The majority of surveyed households make significant sacrifices to meet basic nutritional needs.
• Urgent attention is required to halt and reverse the decline in food security.
• Interventions must align with human rights principles, particularly the rights to health and food.