Assessment of food insecurity in the context of COVID-19: association with emergency aid and collecting food donations among the socially vulnerable population of a capital in Northeastern Brazil

Abstract

The scope of this study was to investi-gate the prevalence of food insecurity in the context of COVID-19 and its association with the emergency aid income-transfer program and the collecting of food donations by the population in a situation of social vulnerability. A cross-section-al study was carried out with socially vulnerable families eight months after confirming the first case of COVID-19 in Brazil. A total of 903 fami-lies, living in 22 underprivileged communities of Maceió, in the state of Alagoas, were included. Sociodemographic characteristics were evaluat-ed, and the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale was applied. The association of food insecurity with the variables studied was performed using Poisson regression with robust variance estimation, considering α = 5%. Of the total sample, 71.1% were food insecure, a situation associated with re-ceiving food donations (PR = 1.14; 95%CI: 1.02; 1.27) and being a beneficiary of emergency aid (PR =1.23; 95%CI: 1.01; 1.49). The results show that the population in a situation of social vulnerability was strongly affected by food insecuri-ty. On the other hand, the population group in question benefited from actions implemented at the outset of the pandemic.