Household food insecurity, associated factors and coping strategies among pensioners in jimma town, south west Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Food and nutrition security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to food, which is consumed in sufficient quantity and quality to meet their dietary needs and food preferences, and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation, health services and care, allowing for a healthy and active life. Ethiopia is currently fronting new challenges related to urban poor food insecurity. However, there is no empirical evidence on Jimma Town pensioner‟s household food insecurity and coping strategies. Objective: To assess the household food insecurity, associated factors and coping strategies among Pension user households in Jimma Town, South West Ethiopia. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among pension users household in Jimma town from March, 01 – 28, 2017. Simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were entered into EPI data version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS (Version 20.0).HFIAS Scale was categorized as mildly food insecure (0 - 11), moderately food insecure (11-16), severely food insecure (≥ 17). Binary logistic regression analyses were used to determine the association of food insecurity with different independent variables using odds ratio and 95 % of confidence intervals. Variables with p ≤ 0.25 in the bivariate analyses were entered into a multivariable regression analysis to control for confounding variables. Those variables having a p-value < 0.05 in multivariate logistic regression was consider significance association with dependent variable. Results: Findings of this study showed that 83.5 % of households were food insecure. Findings of multivariable logistic regression analysis also showed that educational status (AOR = 11.02, 95 % CI: 2.96, 41.02), occupational status (AOR = 4.006, 95 % CI: 1.38, 11.65), family size (AOR = 3.74,95 % CI: 1.27, 10.99), marital status (AOR = 1.03, 95 % CI: 1.43, 3.49), and means of livelihood (AOR = 2.44, 95 % CI: 1.102, 5.38) were the significantly factors associated with household food insecurity among pension user of Jimma town. Food insecure households were using coping strategies like changing consumption pattern (44 %) eating inexpensive food (72.4 %), reducing meal frequency (62.4 %) and selling household assets (30.8 %). Conclusions and Recommendations: Factors like household heads education, family size and means of livelihood were significantly associated with household food insecurity status. Food insecure households used different coping strategies like reducing meal frequency and selling assets. Therefore, national policies and programs need to focus on the how to improve income and social life of this vulnerable groups to malnutrition.