Food insecurity and food preparation equipment in US households: exploratory results from a cross-sectional questionnaire.

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity (FI) impacted 15.7% (5.9 million) of US households with children in 2017. These households often experience issues within one or more of the food security pillars: access, availability, utilisation or stability. An underexplored area within the pillar of utilisation that may impact FI risk is the availability of kitchen equipment in households. This exploratory project aimed to quantify household food preparation equipment ownership and use by household FI status. METHODS: An online platform (Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA) was used to administer a questionnaire to a sample of 135 parents of children aged 11-14 years. The instrument queried sociodemographic characteristics, food preparation items owned and frequency of use of 44 items within a 6-month interval. Household FI was measured using the 18-item US Department of Agriculture, Household Food Security Survey Module with a 12-month reference period. RESULTS: Households experiencing FI (n = 39; 28.9%) owned an average of five fewer items than their food secure counterparts (n = 96, 71.1%, P < 0.001), reporting lower item ownership within each equipment category subgroup (i.e. large appliances, small appliances, food preparation utensils and cooking utensils; all P < 0.01). There were no differences between FI and food secure households in frequency of use (all P > 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Compared to food secure households, the number of food preparation items owned was lower, although frequency of use was the same, in US households that were FI. Future projects should investigate how food equipment ownership impacts cooking behaviours, and whether households experiencing FI display behaviours to compensate for a differing set of equipment.

Effect of social exclusion on the risk of teenage pregnancy: development of hypotheses using baseline data from a randomised trial of sex education.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The UK government argues that "social exclusion" increases risk of teenage pregnancy and that educational factors may be dimensions of such exclusion. The evidence cited by the government is limited to reporting that socioeconomic disadvantage and educational attainment influence risk. Evidence regarding young people's attitude to school is not cited, and there is a lack of research concerning the UK. This paper develops hypotheses on the relation between socioeconomic and educational dimensions of social exclusion, and risk of teenage pregnancy, by examining whether dislike of school and socioeconomic disadvantage are associated with cognitive/behavioural risk measures among 13/14 year olds in English schools. DESIGN: Analysis of data from the baseline survey of a study of sex education. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: 13/14 year old school students from south east England. MAIN RESULTS: The results indicate that socioeconomic disadvantage and dislike of school are associated with various risk factors, each with a different pattern. Those disliking school, despite having comparable knowledge to those liking school, were more likely to have sexual intercourse, expect sexual intercourse by age 16, and expect to be parents by the age of 20. For most associations, the crude odds ratios (ORs) and the ORs adjusted for the other exposure were similar, suggesting that inter-confounding between exposures was limited. CONCLUSIONS: It is hypothesised that in determining risk of teenage pregnancy, the two exposures are independent. Those disliking school might be at greater risk of teenage pregnancy because they are more likely to see teenage pregnancy as inevitable or positive.