Dataset Information

Changes in Food Insecurity and Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes: a Nationally Representative Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cross-sectional studies have found that health-related quality of life and mental health are worse among food-insecure compared with food-secure individuals. However, how these outcomes change as food insecurity changes is unclear.

Objective

To evaluate how common patient-reported health-related quality of life and mental health scales change in response to changes in food security.

Design

Retrospective cohort study using data representative of the civilian, adult, non-institutionalized population of the USA.

Participants

Food insecure adults who completed the 2016-2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

Main measures

Mental health, as measured by the mental component score of the Veterans Rand 12-Item Health Survey (VR-12) (primary outcome), along physical health (physical component score of the VR-12), self-rated health status, psychological distress (Kessler 6), depressive symptoms (PHQ2), and the SF-6D measure of health utility. We fit linear regression models adjusted for baseline outcome level, age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, health insurance, and family size followed by predictive margins to estimate the change in outcome associated with a 1-point improvement in food security.

Key results

A total of 1,390 food-insecure adults were included. A 1-point improvement in food security was associated with a 0.38 (95%CI 0.62 to 0.14)-point improvement in mental health, a 0.15 (95%CI 0.02 to 0.27)-point improvement in psychological distress, a 0.05 (95%CI 0.01 to 0.09)-point improvement in depressive symptoms, and a 0.003 (95%CI 0.000 to 0.007)-point improvement in health utility. Point estimates for physical health and self-rated health were in the direction of improvement, but were not statistically significant.

Conclusions

Improvement in food insecurity was associated with improvement in several patient-reported outcomes. Further work should investigate whether similar changes are seen in food insecurity interventions, and the most useful scales for assessing changes in health-related quality of life and mental health in food insecurity interventions.

SUBMITTER: Berkowitz SA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9585105 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Changes in Food Insecurity and Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes: a Nationally Representative Cohort Study.

Berkowitz Seth A SA Palakshappa Deepak D Seligman Hilary K HK Hanmer Janel J

Journal of general internal medicine 20220106 14

<h4>Background</h4>Cross-sectional studies have found that health-related quality of life and mental health are worse among food-insecure compared with food-secure individuals. However, how these outcomes change as food insecurity changes is unclear.<h4>Objective</h4>To evaluate how common patient-reported health-related quality of life and mental health scales change in response to changes in food security.<h4>Design</h4>Retrospective cohort study using data representative of the civilian, adul ...[more]

PMID: 34993877

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Dataset Information

Changes in Food Insecurity and Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes: a Nationally Representative Cohort Study.

Background

Objective

Design

Participants

Main measures

Key results

Conclusions

Publications

Changes in Food Insecurity and Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes: a Nationally Representative Cohort Study.

Similar Datasets

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