Food insecurity, a multidimensional phenomenon has been recognized as a globally leading concern. It contributes to under-nutrition as well as overweight and obesity, and other health status such as anemia in women of reproductive age, low birth weight, childhood stunting, etc. In the world, the number of undernourished people has been rising since 2014, reaching an estimated 821 million in 2017. The situation is worsening in South-eastern Asia, a region of medium risk level of unsecured food. Currently, there are 60 million people in Southeast Asian countries affected, accounting for 8 % of the total undernourishment world population. Although the number and proportion of undernourished people remarkably decreased in the region, its progress has been slower and food security still remains a challenge issue. Hence, identifying its risk factors is underlying basis for intervention strategies to address food insecurity, to improve nutritional status and health condition for people.
As a part of the Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam has also encountered challenges of food insecurity. The prevalence of household food insecurity was 40% in a study of Ali and colleague in 2013 and approximately 34.4% shown in a community – based study at Ho Chi Minh City in 2015. During last decade, Vietnam, an agricultural country with GDP growth averaged greater than 7%, impressively decreased poverty rate from 58% in 1993 to less than 15% in 2010. However, food insecurity does still exist and continues to be a problem, particularly for the poor, female-headed households, children. Urban poor population is actually vulnerable to food insecurity scenario. Accompanied with agriculture sector, fishery is also a major sector in contributing to the improvements in food security and a key part of food security policy for regional policy makers. Therefore, fishery households’ life and livelihood becomes a concern for Vietnamese government.
Until now, studies are scarcely undertaken to explore current state of household food insecurity and its relevant factors through food providers’ perspectives among urban poor fishery families residing in coastal villages of the South Central Coast provinces of Vietnam. In other hand, the strength of relationship and importance of relevant factors with food insecurity differ from contexts as well as the experience of food insecurity varies across households, particularly through food provider’s perspectives.
For this reason, the study is openly carried out in these fertile area that aims to describe the current state of household food insecurity and to identify multi-system level factors ranging from micro- to exo- that predict household food insecurity in the urban poor fishery families in Vietnam
Methods:
Along with a guidance of the bio-ecological theory expanded as the process-person-context-time (PPCT) model formulated by Urie Bronfenbrenner, the present study employs embedded mix-method design with quantitative dominance and descriptive qualitative approach. A stratified random sampling in two districts of a south central coastal province in Vietnam is being conducted to recruit 425 food providers from 425 urban poor fishery households with using inclusion criteria.
Results:
The study is expected to reveal which predictive factors of household food insecurity at different level including 1) individual factors within micro level (person) (i.e. age, marital status, educational level, employment status, food literacy, overall perceived health status, perceived chronic health condition, perceived influence of natural disaster including typhoon, flood, storm), 2) micro level factors (i.e. household structure, household size, number of children, family income, homeownership); 3) Meso level factors (i.e. Social networks and Social support), and 4) Exo level factors (i.e. public transportation) among the urban poor fishery families living in the South Central province of Khanh Hoa, Vietnam
In addition, the result of the study is concentrated on understanding perception and experiences of food provider about household food insecurity and management of food insecurity among the poor fishery families.
Conclusion:
The findings confirm the determinants of household food insecurity in urban poor fishery households as well as explore experience and perception of food providers about food insecurity and their management of food insecurity. These findings provide reliable evidences for constructing further intervention nursing study regarding food security promotion in which the determinants will be tackled. In addition, with well-supplied understanding of food insecurity in this group, nurses, nursing students, nursing educators can enhance their attention in order to address this problem from the nursing perspective. Contribution can be yielded to public health programs for health promotion such as health education and activities that are associated with food security.