The Association Between Food Insecurity and Quality of Life Among Women Living in Urban Slums

Given that food security is considered a key indicator of individual and household health, it can lead to physical and mental health problems that affect the quality of life (QOL). Therefore, this study aimed to determinate the relationship between food insecurity and QOL in women living in the slums. This cross-sectional survey was conducted on 380 healthy women. The participants were selected randomly using cluster sampling from 20 health centers in the slums of Urmia city. Food security was assessed using a 9-item questionnaire, and QOL was measured using the standard SF-36 questionnaire. One-way ANOVA was used to compare QOL scores across food security subgroups, and multinomial logistic regression was applied to analyze the relationship between food security and QOL scores. The total and the subdomains of QOL scores were significantly lower in food-insecure groups than food-secure group (p < .001). There was a significant inverse relationship between food insecurity and all domains and the total score of QOL. The ORs of total score of QOL were for mild food insecure (OR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94-0.98), moderate food insecure (OR: 0.95; 95% CI: 0.94-0.97) and severe food insecure (OR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.92-0.95) (p < .001).