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The United Nations Social Development Goals ensure the achievement of food security by 2030. Food security is characterized by various aspects, however in this study we focus on economic vulnerability to food insecurity. In particular, we compared two measures: food insecurity levels as defined by the Integrated food security phase classification Global-Partners quantitative scale and those defined by the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security qualitative scale. The qualitative scale only measures nutritional status using specific questions, regardless of food expenditures, while the quantitative scale is based on the share of consumer expenditure spent on food (the ratio between food expenditure and total expenditure). From our analysis on 2018 Mexico data—therefore unaffected by the pandemic—59% of discrepancies were found between the two measures. The qualitative scale does not classify people who spend too much on food as being food insecure, so they are economically vulnerable about housing, healthcare and other important aspects of social life (access to food generate insecurity). The quantitative scale does not identify people who do not have access to high-quality nutrition because they must pay for other fixed expenses, for example for housing or healthcare. These two measures depict two aspects of economic vulnerability to food insecurity, and here we quantify this difference in a developing country. Future research should be at integrating these two aspects into one single indicator based on food and non-food expenditures, so to take into account both the two aspects by using only consumption expenditure data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Sustainable Development Goals have set clear targets on global poverty, hunger and malnutrition to be achieved by 2030, which have prompted academics and policymakers to identify useful strategies and drivers. Moreover, the COVID19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities at national and sub-national levels thus hampering the achievement of these goals. On considering the multifaceted nature of poverty, a recent research strand focuses on food poverty and insecurity issues in terms of economic access to food and healthy diet consumption, with moderate and extreme food insecurity affecting almost 9% of the population in Europe and North America. This paper aims to analyse food poverty and insecurity at regional level in Italy. Using micro-data from the Italian Household Budget Survey carried out by ISTAT, an analytical approach was proposed to define and measure the different degree of food poverty and insecurity. Moreover, to obtain insights into whether food poverty and insecurity can afford population healthy nutrition, inequality of the distributions of food expenditure categories are estimated. The results provided us with information on other important aspects of the poverty. Indeed, in Italy individuals who are at-risk-of-food-poverty or food insecure amount to 22.3% of the entire population. Furthermore, the at-risk-of-food-poverty-rate varies at regional level from 14.6% (Umbria) to 29.6% (Abruzzo), with high levels of food consumption inequalities observed above all for vegetables, meat and fish. All these issues could help policy makers to define economic intervention policies aimed at reducing social exclusion and achieving more equitable and sustainable living conditions for the entire population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]