Fruit and vegetable consumption across population segments: evidence from a national household survey.

BACKGROUND: The 2002 World Health Report documented that low fruit and vegetable intake are among the top ten risk factors contributing to attributable mortality and up to three million lives could be saved each year by adequate consumption of F&V across the globe, leading an examination of behavioral preferences of the individual and family social, environmental, and behavioral factors that constitute perceived barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption. OBJECTIVE: The study examines factors affecting the choice of eating fruits and vegetables by household members and calculates eating frequency probabilities of different population-origin associated with personal attributes and behavior. METHOD: Turkish Health Survey (THS) 2019 data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) national representative household panel is applied. Estimating a random-effect bivariate probit model of fruit and vegetable choice, we calculated marginal probabilities of choosing fruits and vegetables, the joint probability of choosing both, and conditional probabilities between choosing to eat either, detecting consumption synergy. RESULTS: The role of uncontrolled variables in choosing to eat fruits and vegetable (F&V) differs between the decision of an average family and the decision of individual family members. The attitude is positive for an average family and contrasts with the negative attitude among some family members. Most individual and family attributes inversely affect fruit and vegetable choice across different groups, while a positive relationship exists between the likelihood of fruit and vegetable choice and attributes such as age, marital status, education, weight, having health insurance, income, and time and forms of physical activity. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: Instead of a general policy for the implementation of a healthy and balanced nutrition program to improve fruit and vegetable eating frequency, it appears more effective to adopt programs with distinct characteristics that segregate society into different cohorts. We suggest appropriate policies and offer suitable approaches to reach targeted groups.

Industrial pollution and human health: evidence from middle-income countries.

The hasty economic development in developing countries comes along with poorer air quality, which has severe toxicological effects on the environment and human health. This study is carried out to explore and empirically investigate the relationship between industrial pollution and health using the panel of middle-income countries (MIC) over 1990-2016. This study uses two indicators of health status, namely life expectancy and infant mortality, and two indicators of industrial pollution, namely carbon dioxide emissions and nitrous oxide emissions. This analysis is carried out using fixed effects (FE) technique on the grounds of the Hausman test. The empirical results suggest that industrial pollution tends to decrease life expectancy and increases infant mortality. In addition, this study suggests that the adverse impact of industrial pollution is greater in lower-middle-income countries (LMIC) in comparison with upper-middle-income countries (UMIC). This study recommends the programs to improve human health status and needs to focus on policies that mitigate industrial pollution burden.