Cash Transfer Program and Food Security: a Comparative Study Between Quilombola Communities and the General Population of Alagoas, Brazil

Abstract

Background: The Cash Transfer Program (CTP) is one of the main strategies to combat Food and Nutritional Insecurity (FNI) in the world and is primarily aimed at population groups subject to greater social vulnerability. Alagoas is one of the Brazilian states that has the worst socioeconomic indicators in the country. However, within its population, there are groups of people who are even more vulnerable due to a historical process of discrimination and social exclusion, such as the remaining quilombo communities, which make them more susceptible to FNI and its consequences.Objective: Compare the Quilombola people with the non-Quilombola population regarding the association between the condition of users of the Cash Transfer Program and the occurrence of Food and Nutritional insecurity and its associated factors.Methods: Data from two cross-sectional studies were used; the rst completed in 2015 with a probabilistic sample representative of families of the state of Alagoas, and the second completed in 2018 with families from Quilombola communities in that state. The Brazilian Scale of Nutritional Insecurity was used to de ne the FNI situation of the families. Both studies were approved by the research ethics committee. Ajusted prevalence ratios were estimated by Poisson regression with robust variance.Results: A total of 5,764 families were investigated (n = 3299 in 2015; n = 2465 in 2018). FNI was identi ed in 58.4% of non-Quilombola and 67.4% in Quilombola families. FNI was associated with participation in the CTP, lower economic classes, per capita family income ≤1 minimum wage, rooms in the household ≤4, families with children under 18 years of age, no home of their own, and households with four or more people. Conclusion: FNI frequency was higher among Quilombola families and, in general, among families using the CTP. Despite the correct targeting of the CTP, which assists a large contingent of the population in poverty, it is necessary to link structural actions to it to ensure socioeconomic increases that can reverse the scenario of low education and professional training, low income, and, consequently, less access to goods and services in a sustainable way.

Modeling of Dengue by Cluster Analysis and Probability Distribution Functions in the State of Alagoas in Brazilian

“…In the present study, as well as in the analysis by [13], the predominance of the dengue (67.2%) was observed. However, it should be considered that the Eastern Alagoas region registered 0.9% of severe disease cases, above the total average (0.61%).…”

“…The environment of urban centers favors the dispersion and density of the populations of Aedes aegypti [8], and there are flaws in the strategies for combating it, thus, the circulation of dengue viruses has been established and expanded, becoming a serious public health problem in the world [9,10].Infestation by Aedes aegypti has grown in recent years, due to the disordered demographic expansion and the lack of planning of cities, with precarious conditions of basic sanitation, creating favorable environments for mosquito breeding sites and its spread throughout Brazil, mainly in the Northeast region [11,12,13].…”

“…Few studies have been carried out for the state of Alagoas, based on an analysis of the temporal/spatial trends and the identification of dengue high risk areas in the state. For example, both [13] and [15] recent studies have not utilized an integrated methodological approach, based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools, but statistics on socioeconomic and environmental data. Thus, this study aimed to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of notified dengue cases in the state of Alagoas using an integrated methodological approach.…”