BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The study objectives were to examine the participation rate in food assistance programs and explore the factors that contribute to such participation among the Korean elderly population. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The study sample comprised 3,932 respondents aged 65 years or older who were selected from a secondary data set, the fourth Korean Welfare Panel Study (KoWePS). The factors, related to participation in programs were examined based on the predisposing, enabling and need factors of the help-seeking behavior model. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to select the best contributors among the factors related to program participation. RESULTS: The predisposing rate in food assistance programs was 8.5% (7.1% for men and 10.4% for women). When all variables were included in the model, living without spouse, no formal education, low income, having social security benefits and food insecurity in elderly men, and age, low income, having social security benefits and feeling poor in elderly women were significantly related to a higher tendency to program participation. CONCLUSIONS: The predisposing and need factors, such as living without spouse, low education level, food insecurity and feeling poor were important for program participation, as well as enabling factors, such as household income and social security benefits. A comprehensive approach considering these factors to identify the target population for food assistance programs is needed to increase the effectiveness and target population penetration of these programs.
Aged* ; Causality ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Dataset ; Education ; Family Characteristics ; Female ; Food Assistance* ; Food Supply ; Health Services Needs and Demand ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Social Security ; Spouses

Objective: The project aims to develop a community kitchen manual for public health emergencies.

Participants: The officers and members of the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Kababaihan ng BASECO served as community respondents for this project. These eight women were in charge of the community kitchen operations, particularly the feeding program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implementation: The whole project comes in three phases. The design stage was executed in phase one of this project. The phase one also focused on the development of manual content based on available literatures and considered the interviews conducted with respondents.

Discussion: The manual contains guidelines on food safety and meal preparations. Based on the interview, the proponents identified specific contents that must be included in the guidelines, as compared with the need to improve current operations of the group's community kitchen. Looking at the activities of the community, the proponents indicated the food flow guidelines to ensure a safe, nourishing and accessible community kitchen (S.N.A.C.K).

Conclusion: The designed community kitchen manual may be of use to lay groups putting up community kitchens, since there is no existing manual in the Philippines. However, phases two and three must be conducted to validate its usefulness and accuracy in the field.

Background: Filipino farmers recorded the highest incidence of poverty in the last decade. In addition, a heightened awareness was observed within agriculture and different government agencies to better understand the link between agriculture and nutrition. However, limited studies have been conducted in the Philippines integrating nutritionsensitive agriculture into the Municipal Agricultural Development Plan (MADP). Objectives: This study aims to determine the effect of capacity building on the knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy of municipal agriculturists on Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) in CALABARZON. Methods: This study utilized a non-randomized controlled trial design to measure the change in knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy of the municipal agriculturists on NSA and nutrition sensitivity of the MADP. A total of 57 municipal agriculturists from CALABARZON participated in the capacity building. Results: Local agriculture planners' knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy significantly improved after capacity building. In addition, membership of municipal agriculturists to local nutrition committee was significantly associated with higher scores difference in knowledge and self-efficacy after the training. Meanwhile, the score difference in their attitude was significantly related to the tenure of employment in local agriculture planners. Conclusion Capacity building on the NSA can significantly improve local agriculture planners' knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. Thus, the government must support programs and initiatives concerning the NSA, like increasing the capacity of local agriculture planners. This will allow them to integrate nutrition-sensitive agriculture concepts positively into their agriculture development plan.
agriculture ; food security ; capacity building

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Food security is a multifaceted issue experienced by nations worldwide. A trend currently being explored in recent studies in measuring food security at the micro level is the Dietary Diversity Score (DDS). Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS), a type of DDS, obtains a snapshot of the economic ability of a household, making it an effective food insecurity indicator. The objective of this study was to assess the validity of the HDDS as a tool for measuring food insecurity.

METHODOLOGY: The study employed a cross-sectional analytic design with 368 study households in Lucena City, Quezon Philippines. Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and Household Mean Adequacy Ratio (HHMAR), being two of the most frequently used methods in measuring household food insecurity, were used as reference standards to assess the validity of the HDDS in identifying food insecure households. Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) Analysis was done to determine the appropriate HDDS cut-off for identifying food insecure households.

RESULTS: The areas under the curve (AUC) obtained (0.618, 0.70, 0.701, 0.743), classified HDDS as a "fair indicator" of food insecurity. HDDS of 6 was identified as the optimal score when evaluating food insecurity withconsideration of sensitivity and specificity.

CONCLUSION: In this study, HDDS was proven to be a valid measure of food insecurity. It shows the great potential of this quick assessment tool in identifying population-at-risk, which is crucial in the design of a timely and appropriate intervention to alleviate food insecurity and other nutrition and health-related problems whichmay arise.

Consumer Product Safety ; legislation & jurisprudence ; Food Supply ; legislation & jurisprudence

To understand the extent of food insecurity in Bangladesh emphasizing on the non cereal food availability and maternal and child nutritional outcome. We conducted systematic review in between 1985 to 2010 by using PubMed and Google Scholar databases as well as archives of relevant journals by hand. Contacting with the author was also performed in the case where original data needed. Results from the evidence it may be sated that despite the growth of cereal production and its availability Bangladesh is still problems with accessing of non cereal foods (e.g., vegetable, fruits, fish, milk, meat, egg etc) as well as the incidence of acute malnutrition in children and mothers were hardnosed in the rural area of Bangladesh.
Food Supply ; Body Mass Index ; Malnutrition ; Child ; Mothers ; Bangladesh

Objective: Based on data related to arsenic contents in paddy rice, as part of the food safety monitoring programs in 2017, to discuss and explore the application of spatial analysis used for food safety risk assessment. Methods: One province was chosen to study the spatial visualization, spatial point model estimation, and kernel density estimation. Moran's I statistic of spatial autocorrelation methods was used to analyze the spatial distribution at the county level. Results: Data concerning the spatial point model estimation showed that the spatial distribution of pollution appeared relatively dispersive. From the kernel density estimation, we found that the hot spots of pollution were mainly located in the central and eastern regions. The global Moran's I values appeared as 0.11 which presented low spatial aggregation to the rice arsenic contamination and with statistically significant differences. One "high-high" and two typical "low-low" clustering were seen in this study. Conclusion: Results from our study provided good visual demonstration, identification of pollution distribution rules, hot spots and aggregation areas for research on the distribution of food pollutants. Spatial statistics can provide technical support for the implementation of issue-based monitoring programs.
Arsenic/adverse effects* ; China ; Cluster Analysis ; Food Contamination ; Food Supply ; Humans ; Spatial Analysis

OBJECTIVES: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) adversely impacts food security in households of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Little research has focused on food insecurity among PLWHA in India. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of and factors relating to food security in households of PLWHA in the Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. METHODS: A cross-sectional community-based study was carried out among 173 PLWHA residing in Siliguri and registered at the Anti-retroviral Therapy Centre of North Bengal Medical College & Hospital. Data was collected at the household level with interviews of PLWHA using a food security survey instrument. We analyzed the associations using logistic regression. RESULTS: The prevalence of household food security among the participants was 50.9% (88/173). Five years or more of schooling, higher socioeconomic class and males were found to be significantly associated with a higher likelihood of food security. A later stage of the disease and the presence of other family members with HIV/AIDS were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of food security. The major coping strategies to deal with food insecurity in the acute phase HIV infection included borrowing money (56.1%), followed by spousal support, loans from microfinance institutions, banks, or money lenders, borrowing food, or selling agricultural products. CONCLUSIONS: The present study revealed that only about half of households with PLWHA were food secure. Prior interventions relating to periods of food and economic crisis as well as strategies for sustaining food security and economic status are needed in this area.
Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Family Characteristics* ; Food Supply* ; HIV ; HIV Infections ; Humans* ; India ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Prevalence

This study examined the hygiene practices of contract foodservice employees and investigated the influence of education and work environment on these hygienes practices. A questionnaire was distributed to 250 contract foodservice employees and a total of 232 responses were received and analyzed. The overall score for hygiene practices of contract foodservice employees was 3.89 based on a 5-point scale. Cross-contamination was prominent (highest score at 4.46) and the heating temperature was less prominent (lowest score at 3.49). The factors most affecting contract foodservice employees were their work period, the size of the contract foodservice management company, the number of meals served daily, the frequency of meal service per day and the frequency of hygiene education. Compared to small and medium-sized contract foodservice management companies, the major contract foodservice management companies showed higher scores for refrigerator/freezer control (P<0.001), vegetable/fruit disinfection (P<0.001), thawing (P<0.001), heating temperature (P<0.001), cleaning/disinfection (P<0.01), and personal hygiene (P<0.05). The frequency of hygiene education had a significant effect on the performance levels for refrigerator/freezer control (P<0.001), vegetable/fruit disinfection (P<0.001), thawing (P<0.001), heating temperature (P<0.001), cleaning/disinfection control (P<0.001), food supply control (P<0.05), and personal hygiene (P<0.05). From these results, to increase the sanitation quality of contract foodservice operations, hygiene practice levels need to increase and hygiene education systematically should be enforced for foodservice employees.
Contracts ; Disinfection ; Food Supply ; Heating ; Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Hygiene ; Meals ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Sanitation

It is thought that the sanitary perception and hygienic food treatment of food suppliers as the first handlers of foodstuffs are extremely significant for the safe and sanitary management of food in group meal services. So in this study, a survey of 103 food suppliers who provide raw materials for 80 meal services in business places around Buasn area was conducted on general matters, participation in sanitation education, sanitary perception, sanitary treatment of foodstuffs, knowledge of sanitation, etc. The results of the survey are as follows: 1. 42.7% of the subjects have worked for the food supply companies for one to five years and the main job of 36.9% of them is delivery service. Food suppliers who handle over two foodstuffs are 6839%. 2. Concerning the participation in sanitation education, 43.7% of the subjects have not experienced any such education, The reason of 23.3% of them for not having the education is that there have been no opportunity for them at all. And 83.5% of them regard the education on hygiene as necessary. 3. In the sanitary perception, 93.1% of the subjects considered the temperature control of the food delivery vehicles as important and 82.5% of them replied on of the leading causes of food poisoning as foodstuffs. 64.0% thought of their knowledge of food sanitation as not very good, but moderate. 4. Concerning sanitary treatment of foodstuffs, 50.5% of delivery vehicles were wearing sanitary uniforms and 24.3% of them washed their hands while supplying food. 5. In the score of hygienic knowledge, the average score of all food suppliers was 60.6 point. In the score of hygienic knowledge on general matters, managing supervisors got 6.31+/-1.81, meat suppliers scored 7.08+/-1.37 and suppliers with 5 to 10 year careers recorded the highest point, 6.37+/-1.70. In the score of hygienic knowledge based on the perception of food sanitation, the food suppliers with the experience of sanitation education scored 6.42+/-1.93 point and the point was significant(p<0.01), compared with that of the food suppliers without the experience of sanitation education. The food suppliers who answered their knowledge was very good scored the highest point, 8.00+/-1.41. The food suppliers who replied that sanitation education was truly necessary recorded the hygienic knowledge score of 6.75+/-1.77, significantly(p<0.01) high. In the score of hygienic knowledge on the basis of the practical degree of sanitary handling of food materials, the food suppliers who answered they cleaned their delivery vehicles everyday scored 6.48+/-1.93, the food suppliers who answered they sterilized their delivery vehicles everyday scored 6.29+/-1.89, the food suppliers who answered they controlled the themperature of their delivery vehicles irregularly scored 6.58+/-1.79 and the food suppliers who answered they washed their hands every time when they were working scored 6.86+/-2.24, significantly(p<0.05) high in comparison with every item in other factors. And the food suppliers who answered they were wearing sanitary uniforms irregularly while suplying foodstuffs scored the highest point, 6.66+/-2.92.
Busan* ; Commerce* ; Education ; Food Supply ; Foodborne Diseases ; Hand ; Hygiene ; Meals ; Meat ; Sanitation