Hartwell-Kinnear Finn
University of Cape Town, Department of Sociology, Rondebosch, Cape Town, South Africa.
JAR Life. 2025 Aug 5;14:100021. doi: 10.1016/j.jarlif.2025.100021. eCollection 2025.
Despite the heterogenous challenges of growing older in low- and middle-income settings, there is a deficiency of research explicating food insecurity among older persons. Given rapid population ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa, alongside worsening deprivation, this paper offers an interrogation of existing evidence and exposes concomitant shortfalls in the knowledgebase. Scoping review methodology was employed using PRISMA Guidelines which systematically searched and screened three academic databases. At the global level, climate shifts and natural disasters, pandemics and epidemics such as Coronavirus-2019 and HIV/AIDS affect food insecurity. At a national level, food and welfare systems play a comparatively well-researched role in food insecurity among older persons. Community factors; levels of self-mobilisation or actions of civil society, and intrahousehold dynamics of kinship and associated resource distribution also proved important variables in determining food insecurity. Finally, demographic characteristics; age, marital status, gender, physical and cognitive abilities and coping mechanisms are discussed. In critical review, the work identifies two salient shortcomings in the understanding of food insecurity among older persons. One, extant research fails to account for path dependency, either within the lives of older persons, or socio-economic and political structures surrounding them. The findings, therefore, call for greater impetus upon the adoption of a life-course perspective. Two, scholars have failed to acknowledge older persons' role in shaping these structures and the food/welfare matrix at large. The work concludes by advocating for further theoretical development toward a comprehensive political economy of food insecurity, accounting for changes in the life-course of the individual, and the food, family and welfare systems in which they find themselves.
尽管在低收入和中等收入环境中变老面临着各种各样的挑战，但针对老年人粮食不安全问题进行阐释的研究却很匮乏。鉴于撒哈拉以南非洲地区人口迅速老龄化，同时贫困状况不断恶化，本文对现有证据进行了审视，并揭示了知识库中相应的不足。采用了循证综述方法，依据PRISMA指南系统地搜索和筛选了三个学术数据库。在全球层面，气候变化和自然灾害、大流行病和疫情，如2019冠状病毒病和艾滋病毒/艾滋病，都会影响粮食不安全状况。在国家层面，粮食和福利系统在老年人粮食不安全问题上所起的作用得到了相对充分的研究。社区因素；自我动员水平或民间社会的行动，以及家庭内部的亲属关系动态和相关资源分配，也被证明是决定粮食不安全状况的重要变量。最后，还讨论了人口特征，如年龄、婚姻状况、性别、身体和认知能力以及应对机制。在批判性审视中，该研究指出了在理解老年人粮食不安全问题方面的两个显著不足。其一，现有研究未能考虑路径依赖，无论是在老年人的生活中，还是在他们周围的社会经济和政治结构中。因此，研究结果呼吁更加重视采用生命历程视角。其二，学者们未能认识到老年人在塑造这些结构以及整个粮食/福利矩阵方面所起的作用。该研究最后主张进一步开展理论发展，以建立一个全面的粮食不安全政治经济学，考虑个体生命历程中的变化，以及他们所处的粮食、家庭和福利系统。
