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Food Insecurity and HIV/AIDS - Research to Inform Advovacy

Sun, August 11, 2:30 to 3:30pm, Sheraton New York, Floor: Third Floor, New York Ballroom West

Abstract

“Food security” means access at all times to enough and nutritious food needed for an active and healthy life. The lack of food security is not only an issue of individual experience of hunger or malnutrition but an ‘intermediary social determinant’ of health – the outcome of broader social and economic processes, political, legal, and cultural systems, that shapes the immediate conditions of day-to-day life which facilitate or constrain the ability of individuals and communities to meet their basic needs. This paper will summarize available empirical evidence on the multi-dimensional links between food insecurity and risk for HIV and outcomes of infection, and promising approaches to addressing food insecurity at the individual, community and policy levels. Food insecurity worsens health along the cascade of care for HIV from increasing risk for HIV infection, to access and sustained engagement in HIV care, and improved clinical health, functional health, and quality of life outcomes. A growing body of evidence supports the crucial need to develop and evaluate food and nutrition programs within the broader context of structural interventions that address social determinants of heath and health equity.
Research on the food insecurity and positive outcomes of food and nutrition services is used by the Food is Medicine Coalition, a collaboration of service providers and advocates for increased public support to expand access to food security. FIMC is an active member of the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP) Structural Interventions Workgroup advocating for social and economic interventions to ensure food security, safe and stable housing, and employment or other livelihood resources.
Cross-sectoral interventions at the community and health systems levels that respond to food and other basic needs such as housing, and enhance livelihood and social protection resources, hold substantial promise for improving the health and human rights of PLWH and ending AIDS.

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