Food insecurity in rural families in the extreme south of Brazil.

This study aimed to track the prevalence of Food Insecurity (FI) and to study associated factors in households with children, women and older adults in the rural area of the city of Rio Grande, RS. This is a cross-sectional population-based study, with systematic sampling of 80% of permanently inhabited households. A short version of the Brazilian Scale of Food Insecurity (EBIA) was employed. The associated factors included data referring to the head of the household, as well as data referring to the household. The levels of prevalence and prevalence ratios and their respective confidence intervals were calculated for food insecurity through Poisson regression with robust variance. Of the 1,627 domiciles interviewed, 26% were in an FI situation, and households that included three populations were higher. The most affected domiciles were those in which the head of the household had less than four years of schooling, with more residents, without animal husbandry, belonging to the lowest income quartile and receiving family grants ("Bolsa Família" Program). This study showed the relevance and magnitude of the FI problem in the rural region of Rio Grande since knowledge about the actual FI prevalence of this region is unknown.