Diet Cost and Affordability in Queensland: A Two-Year Cross-Sectional Study

Area of Science:

• Public Health Nutrition
• Health Economics
• Indigenous Health

Background:

• Diet affordability is crucial for food security, health, and wellbeing.
• Routine measurement of diet cost and affordability in Queensland has been absent for over a decade.
• Assessing diet affordability is vital for understanding and addressing health inequities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the cost and affordability of healthy and habitual diets across Queensland.
• To analyze diet costs relative to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households.
• To identify policy implications for improving diet affordability and reducing health disparities.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Healthy Diets Australian Standardised Affordability and Pricing (HD-ASAP) protocol.
• Collected data in 35 Queensland communities over two years (2023-2024).
• Analyzed data for a six-person intergenerational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reference household.

Main Results:

• Healthy diets exceeded the food stress threshold (25% of income) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households, costing at least 26% of income.
• Healthy diets were, on average, 30% cheaper than habitual diets but remained unaffordable.
• Remote Queensland saw a significant 24% decrease in healthy diet costs in 2024, narrowing urban-rural cost differences.

Conclusions:

• Diet-related cost-of-living presents significant challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in Queensland.
• Ongoing monitoring of diet affordability is essential.
• Policy interventions, such as targeted subsidies, are needed to enhance diet affordability and reduce nutrition-related health inequity.