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Food insecurity is a growing problem in Brazil, especially among older adults; however, the related sociodemographic factors remain unclear. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between social support dimensions and food insecurity among community-dwelling older adult Brazilians in São Paulo. This cross-sectional study was conducted in three cities in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The analysis included 598 community-dwelling individuals aged ≥60-years-old, and multiple logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations between the dimensions of social support and food insecurity after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. We found that 42.3% of participants were food insecure. In the bivariate analysis, the higher scores in the affective, material, positive social interaction, and informational social support dimensions were statistically associated with the lower odds of food insecurity. In the multiple regression analysis, older adults who had a higher score of positive social interaction were less likely to have food insecurity, whereas the African American ethnicity and those older adults with a total family income ≤2 times of the minimum wage were more likely to have food insecurity. The results indicate that the positive social interaction emerges as an important factor associated with food insecurity among older adults, beyond that of other well-known social factors associated with food insecurity, highlighting the importance of screening for food insecurity and social support in primary care to avoid potential adverse health outcomes among older adults.

Trata-se de um estudo de intervenção (ensaio) com 10 famílias do município de Campinas (SP) divididas igualitariamente em divididas em 2 grupos: controle e intervenção. O consumo alimentar foi avaliado através de: Questionário de Frequência Alimentar (QFA), Diário Alimentar de 3 dias não consecutivos, sendo 1 dia do fim de semana e Lista de Compras. Os itens do QFA foram classificados segundo o Guia Alimentar para População Brasileira: in natura, minimamente processados, processados, ultraprocessados, e óleos, gorduras, sal e açúcar (OGSA). A frequência de consumo dos itens foi padronizada em quantidade semanal e as diferenças entre antes e depois dos grupos foram analisadas pelo software Stata® versão 12, utilizando teste t-student pareado, com significância de 5%. Não foi possível realizar análise estatística dos dados do Diário Alimentar e da Lista de Compras pois não houve adesão de todas as famílias às ferramentas.

Food security can be defined as when the individual has access to food consumption in adequate quality and quantity, respecting aspects such as age, physiological condition and cultural habits. While international studies showed the association of Food Insecurity (FI) and many negative health outcomes, like depressive symptoms, less is known about food insecurity among older people in Brazil, especially about its association with health. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between FI and Depressive Symptoms (DS) among community older Brazilian adults. Were included in this study 493 community older people with 60+. Geriatric Depression Scale were used to measure DS and for assessment of FI was used the short version of the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale, added with one question involving functional limitations to buy food. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) adjusted for covariates (e.g., sex, education, age and familiar income). The prevalence of FI were 42.4% and the prevalence of DS were 71.5% of population. The prevalence of DS was higher in the group with FI than among those without F (78.9% vs 65.8% respectively; p=0.001). In the adjusted regression analysis, the chance of presenting positive symptomatology for depression was 1.87 times higher among the older people with FI (CI 1.18 –2.91; p=0.007). The findings demonstrate high prevalence of FI and DS indicating the importance of FI screening among community-based older people in order to avoid possible negative health outcomes in this population, such as the development of depressive symptoms.