{
  "abstract": "Background Food insecurity is a global public health concern as it is associated with several negative health outcomes. Several risk factors have been identified in the UK, but an in-depth analysis of financial factors has been lacking in this country context. Understanding predictors of food insecurity is necessary for effective interventions, and this study aims to address this gap.Methods Utilising data from the 2021-23 UK Household Longitudinal Survey, we investigate the associations between several understudied financial factors and the risk of food insecurity among households in the UK. Average marginal effects were calculated based on results from a multivariate logistic regression model. Independent variables included employment of each head of household, Universal Credit (UC) receipt, income, debts, and savings. Covariates included household size, age, ethnicity, education, children in household, tenure, student debt, and long-term illness/disability. This analysis included 11553 households.Results Preliminary results suggest that financial factors greatly influence risk of food insecurity. Food insecurity was 9 percentage points (95% CI: 6-12%) higher for households with the lowest incomes compared to the highest. Households with low savings had higher levels of food insecurity than those with high savings (11%, 9-12%), as did those with, particularly low value, debts, compared to those without debt (7%, 4-9%). Households in receipt of UC had higher levels of food insecurity than those who did not (11%, 8-13%), and households whose heads were unemployed/long-term ill (2%, 0-4%), not seeking work (5%, 2-8%), single (4%, 2-6%) or whose partners did not work (5%, 2-8%) also had higher levels of food insecurity than those where both heads were employed.Conclusion This analysis reveals that several understudied financial factors are key predictors of food insecurity. This suggests that proposed interventions to tackle food insecurity in the UK population must look to increase household financial security.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Daniel Pinhay"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Rachel Loopstra"
    }
  ],
  "title": "P03-5 Financial predictors of food insecurity among UK households: a quantitative analysis of representative, cross-sectional survey data",
  "uid": "b9a40cb5-b436-5cef-b21f-31b889e80793"
}