Characterization of Mexican households with food insecurity

Objective. To describe the sociodemographic and health characteristics associated with food insecurity (FI) in Mexican households. Materials and methods. The study included information about 40 809 households from the National Health and Nutrition Survey 2012. The Latin American and Caribbean Scale Food Safety (ELCSA) was used to categorize households in terms of food insecurity. Classification and regression trees were used to identify the most significant characteristics in households with high prevalence of FI. Results. The characteristics associated with higher prevalence of FI in homes were: lowest quintiles of welfare status, lack of education or walking or moving disability of household head, and not receiving money from social programmes, pension or remittances. Conclusion. Monitoring of the factors that favor the presence of FI is required to detect social groups being excluded from the right to food.