Research PaperFood insufficiency and food insecurity as risk factors for physical disability among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon: Evidence from an observational study
Section snippets
Study design and covariates
A socio-economic survey was conducted by the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in July–August 2010 on the living conditions of Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. This paper uses data from this survey and STATA 9.0 for Mac to run the statistical analyses. Table 1 lists the variables used with some summary statistics.
The survey covered 2575 eligible households living in 12 camps and 20 gatherings in five different areas: Central
Results
Table 1 presents the sociodemographic, food security and health characteristics of households surveyed. 55% of households had food insufficiency, whereas close to 62% were food insecure. 13% of households had a member with a known cause of disability, whereas 3% of households included a disabled individual of “other” cause.
In the regressions in Table 2 of nutritional profile variables on disability by cause, the excluded disability category is “disability of unknown cause,” therefore the
Discussion
When the associations of food insecurity, insufficiency and insufficient variety in the regression known cause disability is contrasted to their coefficients in the regression of disability of “other” causes, food insufficiency and insufficient food variety are not significant in predicting the relative odds of known-cause disability. By contrast, food insufficiency is significant in predicting the relative log odds of unknown cause disability. Furthermore, the magnitudes of the associations of
Conclusions
Parsing out the associations between a set of measures of food insecurity and disabilities by causes reveals the existence of a consistently significant and positive partial correlation between food insufficiency and disability specifically due to disease, even when controlling for chronic health conditions and household socio-economic status.
What is already widely known in the literature about the severely impoverishing effects of disability (regardless of cause) suggests that prevention
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the excellent research assistance of Sami Ramly and Anniebelle Sassine. The authors also acknowledge Dr. Nuha Nuwayri-Salti for contributions to a previous draft of the abstract.
References (24)
- et al.
Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries
Lancet
(2013) - et al.
Intersections between disability, type of impairment, gender and socio-economic disadvantage in a nationally representative sample of 33,101 working-aged Australians
Disabil Health J
(2015) - et al.
Child disability screening, nutrition, and early learning in 18 countries with low and middle incomes: data from the third round of UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2005-06)
Lancet
(2009) Household food insecurity with hunger is associated with women's food intakes, health and household circumstances
J Nutr
(2001)- et al.
Household food insufficiency is associated with poorer health
J Nutr
(2003) - et al.
Development and validation of an Arab family food security scale
J Nutr
(2014) - et al.
Malnutrition and disability: unexplored opportunities for collaboration
Paediatr Int Child Health
(2014) - et al.
Work trajectories, income changes, and food insufficiency in a Michigan welfare population
Soc Serv Rev
(2007) - et al.
Disability and poverty in developing countries: a multidimensional study
World Dev
(2013) Disability and American families: 2000
Bulletin
(2005)
Disability is an important risk factor for food insecurity
Amber Waves
The subjective well-being of people caring for a family member with a severe disability at home: a review
J Intellect Dev Disabil
Cited by (0)
A previous version of the abstract (co-authored with Dr. Nuha Nuwayri-Salti) was published as “Disability and food insufficiency in the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon: a household survey” at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62603-3 as part of the abstracts published in The Lancet, Volume 382, Special Issue S31, 5 December 2013, of the proceedings of the Lancet Palestine Health Alliance Conference.
Disclosures: The data was collected as part of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) (grant title “UNRWA-AUB Socio-Economic Survey of Palestine Refugees in Lebanon”) service grant. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.