Food insecurity and low income in an English inner city

Tingay, Richard S.
Tan, Chuan Jin
Tan, Neil C.-W.
Tang, Stephen
Teoh, Pei Fen
Wong, Rebecca
Gulliford, Martin C.

Richard S. Tingay, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Chuan Jin Tan, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Neil C.-W. Tan, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Stephen Tang, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Pei Fen Teoh, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Rebecca Wong, Medical Student, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.
Martin C. Gulliford, Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, Capital House, 42 Weston Street, London SE1 3QD.

Address correspondence to Martin Gulliford. E mail: [email protected]

Accepted on 9 January 2003

Journal of Public Health Medicine 25(2):p 156-159, June 2003.

Background

Low incomes may not provide the minimum requirements for healthy living. We evaluated experiences of food insecurity in relation to income in inner London.

Methods

Subjects attending 10 general medical practices completed a short self-administered questionnaire, including the short form Household Food Security Scale and a short food frequency questionnaire.

Results

Responses were obtained from 431/495 (87 per cent) subjects. Overall 87 (20 per cent) of subjects were classified as food insecure. Food insecurity was negatively associated with household income (p = 0.004). University-educated subjects (8 per cent) were less often food insecure than all others (26 per cent). Subjects who were food insecure were less likely to report eating fruit daily (food secure 48 per cent, food insecure 33 per cent, p = 0.017) or vegetables or salads daily (food secure 56 per cent, food insecure 34 per cent, p = 0.002).

Conclusions

Experiences of food insecurity may be common in households with incomes at the level of the UK national minimum wage or lower.