Poverty and household food insecurity in Mongolia

Introduction: This study was designed to review the food security of the country and to study the household food insecurity of poor households in relation to the poverty level. Methods: Cross-sectional survey design was used to assess the perceptions of socio-economic changes, food insecurity in national and household levels, and their health impact. Using a systematic multistage random sampling method, a total of 731 households were selected from the capital city Ulaanbaatar and other four aimags (administration units), representing four geographic regions for the study. Questionnaires were completed to identify the situation of household food insecurity and social support. In the questionnaire, food security status was evaluated using the 18-question U.S. Food Security Survey Module. Quantitative data analysis was performed using SPSS version 11.0. Results: One third of the total households are in a status of severe food insecurity with hunger. Only 11% of total households are food secure. Most households consume a few types of foodstuffs, for e.g. 38.5% and 24.2% of the total households mainly consume only two or three types of foodstuffs respectively. In Pearson's correlation analysis, there was a direct correlation between the types of consumed foodstuffs and the total monthly household income per capita (r=0.4, p<0.0001). Multivariate analysis on the risk factors of household food insecurity showed that the household income was significantly inversely associated with household food insecurity (RR=-0.489; 95% CI -0.540, -0.398; P<0.001). Discussion: This is the first study to measure food insecurity in the household level in Mongolia. The main factor was found to be the household income and when it was reduced, the food insecurity increased among poor households. The reduction of income leads to an increase in poverty. Since food expenditure of poor households decreased, households were affected by food insecurity and hunger. On studying the relationship between household food insecurity and poverty level, it was evident that poor households were six times more food secure than the very poor households were. Whereas, very poor households had 3 times more severe food insecurity than the poor households (Chi-square = 123.67; P<0.001. In conclusion, food insecurity with hunger in the households is significantly related to poverty of the households.