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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Jul;23(10):1778-1790.
doi: 10.1017/S136898001900435X. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

Food insecurity and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Ali Pourmotabbed  1   2 , Sajjad Moradi  3   4 , Atefeh Babaei  1 , Abed Ghavami  5 , Hamed Mohammadi  6 , Cyrus Jalili  7 , Michael E Symonds  8 , Maryam Miraghajani  9
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Food insecurity and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Ali Pourmotabbed et al. Public Health Nutr. 2020 Jul.

Erratum in

Abstract

Objective: Food security has been suggested to be a risk factor for depression, stress and anxiety. We therefore undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of available publications to examine these associations further.

Design: Relevant studies were identified by searching Web of Science, Embase, Scopus and PubMed databases up to January 2019.

Setting: OR was pooled using a random-effects model. Standard methods were used for assessment of heterogeneity and publication bias.

Participants: Data were available from nineteen studies with 372 143 individual participants from ten different countries that were pooled for the meta-analysis.

Results: The results showed there was a positive relationship between food insecurity (FI) and risk of depression (OR = 1·40; 95 % CI: 1·30, 1·58) and stress (OR = 1·34; 95 % CI: 1·24, 1·44) but not anxiety. Subgroup analysis by age showed that subjects older than ≥65 years exhibited a higher risk of depression (OR = 1·75; 95 % CI: 1·20, 2·56) than younger participants (OR = 1·34; 95 % CI: 1·20, 1·50), as well as a greater risk of depression in men (OR = 1·42; 95 % CI: 1·17, 1·72) than women (OR = 1·30; 95 % CI: 1·16, 1·46). Finally, subgroup analysis according to geographical location illustrated that food insecure households living in North America had the highest risk of stress and anxiety.

Conclusions: The evidence from this meta-analysis suggests that FI has a significant effect on the likelihood of being stressed or depressed. This indicates that health care services, which alleviate FI, would also promote holistic well-being in adults.

Keywords: Anaemia risk; Anxiety; Depression; Food insecurity; Meta-analysis; Stress; Systematic review.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flowchart describing the study’s systematic literature search and study selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Forest plot showing odds ratio with 95 % confidence interval of the association between food insecurity and depression risk
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Forest plot showing odds ratio with 95 % confidence interval of the association between food insecurity and stress risk
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Forest plot showing odds ratio with 95 % confidence interval of the association between food insecurity and anxiety risk
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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