Food insecurity and dietary diversity among food aid recipients in urban and rural areas at the covid‐19 outbreak: An exploratory study

• Published date: 01 May 2024
• Author: Elena Carrillo‐Álvarez,Lluís Costa‐Tutusaus,Raimon Milà‐Villaroel,Nithya Shankar Krishnan,Blanca Salinas‐Roca
• Date: 01 May 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wfp2.12070

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Food insecurity and dietary diversity among

food aid recipients in urban and rural areas at

the covid-19 outbreak: An exploratory study

Elena Carrillo-

´

Alvarez

1

| Lluís Costa-Tutusaus

1

|

Raimon Milà-Villaroel

1

| Nithya Shankar Krishnan

1

|

Blanca Salinas-Roca

1,2

1

Global Research on Wellbeing (GRoW)

Research Group, Blanquerna School of

Health Science, Ramon Llull University,

Barcelona, Spain

2

Institut de Recerca Biomèdica, Lleida,

Spain

Correspondence

Blanca Salinas-Roca, Institut de Recerca

Biomèdica. Av. Alcalde Rovira Roure,

80, Lleida 25198, Spain.

Email: blancasr@blanquerna.url.edu

Funding information

Universitat Ramon Llull, Grant/Award

Number: 2020-URL-Proj 0024

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has affected food aid. This

paper reports an exploratory study to estimate the prev-

alence and degree of food insecurity, household dietary

diversity score (HDDS), and the association with demo-

graphic, social, and economic characteristics of health

status in a sample of food aid recipients in urban and

rural areas of Catalonia, Spain. Cross-sectional data on

food insecurity, dietary diversity, household income,

health, and sociodemographic characteristics were

obtained from the survey taken at seven different food

aid distribution points from urban and rural locations.

Sixty-six percent of the participants identified as new

users since the covid-19 crisis. Only 12.5% of the sam-

ple lived in households where all adults were unem-

ployed, and 44.8% were employed. Almost a third of

the sample (32.3%) reported having someone in their

household who suffered from a diet-related illness or

disease. The prevalence of severe food insecurity was

52.1%, followed by 28.1% suffering moderate food inse-

curity. New food aid users due to covid-19 pandemic

showed a significantly higher prevalence of food

Received: 11 December 2023 Revised: 3 April 2024 Accepted: 4 April 2024

DOI: 10.1002/wfp2.12070

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits

use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or

adaptations are made.

© 2024 The Authors. World Food Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization.

World Food Policy. 2024;10:33–47. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wfp2 33