Food security status in households of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in a Ugandan urban setting

Abstract

Because HIV/AIDS negatively impacts on the food security status of households, it is crucial to identify how households respond to these impacts, in order to identify positive food security entry points and design strategies that can effectively alleviate food insecurity among the households of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). A cross-sectional study was thus undertaken to establish how HIV affected households in an urban Ugandan setting in terms of response to food shortages and the interrelations between the practice of agriculture by PLWHA households within and around town, food security, access to food aid and dietary diversity among these households. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected using quantitative methods from 144 randomly recruited households of PLWHA (aged 15-49 years) residing in Jinja town in Eastern Uganda. The study showed that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has increased the inability of affected households in the study area to put enough food on the table, possibly because of the continued decreased productivity in these households and the high expenditure on medical costs. Various coping mechanisms identified in the households of PLWHA may contribute to poor adherence to antiretroviral regimes and poor quality of life for all household members. However, the practice of agriculture by PLWHA households was one of the positive coping mechanisms to alleviate food insecurity.

Levels and Predictors of Food Insecurity among HIV Positive Adult Patients Taking Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy at Arba Minch General Hospital, Southern Ethiopia, 2016

“…Reduced food intake in HIV affected households could also be secondary to loss of income and food production capacity in the family due to labor loss, psychosocial factors, or medication sideeffects [4][5][6]. Like other chronic care drugs antiretroviral drugs are difficult to take on an empty stomach due to associated side effects, distance from health facility and transportation cost, search of work add additional burden on a patient with impaired immunity influences retention on HIV/AIDS treatment and care [7][8][9].…”

“…Food insecurity, leads to increased risk of HIV transmission and rapid disease progression [41]. The effect Food insecurity on adherence to HAART globally is multifactorial and different studies reported that lower levels of medication adherence among food insecure individuals taking HAART [42][43][44].…”

Measuring Food and Nutrition Security: Tools and Considerations for Use Among People Living with HIV

“…Examples of these types of food consumption measures range in scope from the commonly used 98-food items Block FFQ [67] to quick categorizations based on consumption of seven culturally-based food groups [68]. In an international context, modified version of this type of questionnaire has been used by some organizations and researchers [25,68].…”

“…Perhaps most notable, several studies have used the HDDS [25] or an adapted HDDS to measure dietary quality among HIV-positive people in Ethiopia [76], Malawi [77] and Uganda [68]. The HDDS is used widely programmatically and typically measures dietary diversity at household level.…”

“…The HDDS is used widely programmatically and typically measures dietary diversity at household level. An adapted HDDS has also been used in connection to studies of infants and children [68,78]. Studies that measure dietary diversity using analysis of food groupings have shown that HIV-positive people, not unlike other poor populations, often consume poor diets, characterized by high frequency of starchy foods and low frequency of protein and micronutrient-dense food types [60,70,79,80].…”