Explaining Income-Related Inequalities in Dietary Knowledge: Evidence from the China Health and Nutrition Survey

Abstract

Lack of adequate dietary knowledge may result in poor health conditions. This study aims to measure income-related inequality in dietary knowledge, and to explain the sources of the inequality. Data were from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducted in 2015. A summary of the dietary knowledge score and dietary guideline awareness was used to measure the dietary knowledge of respondents. The concentration index was employed as a measure of socioeconomic inequality and was decomposed into its determining factors. The study found that the proportion of respondents who correctly answered questions on dietary knowledge was significantly low for some questions. Compared to rural residents, urban residents had a higher proportion of correctly answered dietary knowledge questions. In addition, there are pro-rich inequalities in dietary knowledge. This observed inequality is determined not only by individual factors but also high-level area factors. Our study recommends that future dietary education programs could take different strategies for individuals with different educational levels and focus more on disadvantaged people. It would be beneficial to consider local dietary habits in developing education materials.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) of Sugar Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) Amongst Adolescents in Malaysian Secondary Schools: A cross-Sectional Study

“…This study brought forward interesting ndings that demonstrate that those with low income also re ected good knowledge in SSBs. This nding is in agreement with the suggestion by Xu et al (2020), who mention that the inequality of knowledge is also strongly related to geographical areas with good accessibility to education facilities (22). Hence, the area considered in this study has good accessibility to facilities such as well-equipped public educational institutions and also multiple areas with free internet hot spots.…”

Changing Income-Related Inequality in Daily Nutrients Intake: A Longitudinal Analysis from China

“…CHNS collects the information on residents’ diet structures, nutritional and health status, as well as socioeconomic conditions. Detailed information on quality assurance measures and sampling procedure could be found on their website [ 13 ].…”

Better Dietary Knowledge and Socioeconomic Status (SES), Better Body Mass Index? Evidence from China—An Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach

“…The validity and reliability of this diet-related questionnaire has been previously evaluated [31][32][33]. We also implemented the Cronbach's alpha test to examine the questionnaire's internal reliability.…”

“…Covariates: Based on the literature, we considered the following commonly used SES and demographic (DE) factors: income, education, age, gender, household size, marital status, and regional variables [19,31,[34][35][36][37]. Because the relationship between BMI and household income varies with gender, we constructed new variables using household income per capita in concert with gender, denoted by Male*Household Income Per Capita (PCHHincome) and Female* PCHHincome [38].…”