Over one in 13 UK households struggle with food insecurity, with Black British households and individuals experiencing mental health issues disproportionately affected.
New research, published in PLOS One this week, shows 7.8% of UK households experienced food insecurity in 2019/20. However, this statistic masks deeper divides.
According to the study, Black/African/Caribbean/Black British households were almost three times more likely to experience food insecurity than white households – 20% compared with 7%. What’s more, rates were discovered to be higher among households that were younger, single, lower-income, renting or receive state benefits.
Meanwhile, experts discovered people with long-term mental health conditions were twice as likely to live in a food-insecure household. The link was evidence across all ethnic groups, but particularly acute among Asian/Asian British respondents, who were over 2.6 times as likely to report a long-standing mental health problem.
To conduct the research, led by Dr Maddy Power at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, experts analysed data from the 2019/20 Family Resources Survey – one of the most detailed national snapshots of food insecurity – which included more than 19,000 UK households.
Researchers, however, noted that the number of people facing food poverty is likely to higher, since the survey only looked at one person per household and focused on the previous 30 days, rather than a full year. Likewise, the data also pre-dates the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, both of which have contributed to the problem across the UK.
In response to the findings, researchers are calling for policy reform. The authors of the study said: ‘[D]espite rhetoric, ethnic minority groups remain disadvantaged in the UK and policies to reduce inequalities are essential.’
The full study can be accessed here.
Photos via UnSplash and Openverse
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