Department of Economics, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 May;301:114830. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114830. Epub 2022 Feb 28.
Extensive research has indicated food insecurity to be associated with depressive symptoms, both of which have been indicated to increase globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. Few studies, however, have made use of nationally representative and longitudinal data to investigate this relationship, making causal claims difficult. In South Africa (SA), as with other low- and middle-income contexts, population-based studies have generally focused on mothers during the perinatal period and other vulnerable groups. This study made use of Cross-Lagged Dynamic Panel Models to examine the relationship between household food insecurity and the depressive symptoms of adults across three waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) study collected in 2020 and 2021, a dataset nationally representative of all adults in SA in 2017. Stratification of the sample by gender, parenthood and marital statuses allowed for the assessment of gender differences in family roles that might account for differential impacts of food insecurity on mental health outcomes. The findings of this study indicated a significant impact of food insecurity on the depressive symptoms of adults. Controlling for stable trait-like individual differences eliminated much of this relationship, indicating partial or full mediation by unobserved factors. Gender differences in food security's association with depressive symptoms amongst cohabitating parents following the inclusion of individual effects provided support for a gendered role response. These findings provide further evidence of the complex interactions between sex, gender and health.
大量研究表明，食物不安全与抑郁症状有关，而这两者在 COVID-19 大流行期间都在全球范围内有所增加。然而，很少有研究利用具有全国代表性和纵向的数据来调查这种关系，这使得因果关系的主张变得困难。在南非（SA），与其他中低收入国家一样，基于人群的研究通常集中在围产期的母亲和其他弱势群体上。本研究利用交叉滞后动态面板模型，在 2020 年和 2021 年收集的全国收入动态调查-冠状病毒快速移动调查（NIDS-CRAM）研究的三个波次中，研究了家庭食物不安全与成年人抑郁症状之间的关系，该数据集在 2017 年全国代表了所有南非成年人。按性别、是否为人父母和婚姻状况对样本进行分层，评估了家庭角色中的性别差异，这些差异可能导致食物不安全对心理健康结果的影响存在差异。本研究的结果表明，食物不安全对成年人的抑郁症状有显著影响。通过控制稳定的个体差异特征，消除了这种关系的大部分，这表明未被观察到的因素部分或完全介导了这种关系。在包括个体效应后，同居父母的粮食安全与抑郁症状之间的关联存在性别差异，这为性别角色反应提供了支持。这些发现进一步证明了性别、性别和健康之间复杂的相互作用。
