Assessing household, plant-based, and animal-based dietary diversity and their determinants among Sundarbans mangrove forest resource-dependent communities in Bangladesh

The Household Dietary Diversity Scale (HDDS) is a widely accepted measure of dietary and nutritional intake patterns of individuals or households. However, it comprises two components: the plant-based dietary diversity score (P-BDDS) and animal-based dietary diversity score (A-BDDS). However, there is no empirical study regarding the pattern of HDDS, P-BDDS, and A-BDDS among Sundarbans mangrove forest resource-dependent communities (SMFRDCs). Thus, this endeavor attempts to assess the HDDS, P-BDDS, and A-BDDS of SMFRDCs and identify the factors associated with these measures of dietary diversity. Administering a structured interview schedule, data for this cross-sectional study were collected from 782 participants from three southwestern coastal districts of Bangladesh, selected following multistage stratified random sampling, and data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27. The findings suggest that the average score of HDDS, P-BDDS, and A-BDDS was 4.8 (±1.8), 2.8 (±1.0), and 2.0 (±1.2), respectively. The hierarchical multiple regression (HMR), explaining 33 % of the variance for HDDS, indicates that education, seasonal occupation, transport and land assets, social, financial, and political capital, institutional vulnerability, and food insecurity significantly determined the HDDS of SMFRDCs. For P-BDDS, the HMR, explaining 20 % variance, showed that seasonal occupation; Upazila; savings; transport; livestock; land assets; natural, financial, and political capital; institutional vulnerability; and food insecurity were the key predictors of P-BDDS of SMFRDCs. For A-BDDS, it is apparent that education, Upazila, type of family, savings, domestic, livestock, land assets, human, social, natural, and political capital, institutional vulnerability, and food insecurity were important determinants of A-BDDS among the SMFRDCs, explaining over 40 % variance. To ensure dietary diversity with proper nutritional intake by SMFRDCs, the complex interplay between livelihood resources and food access in ecologically vulnerable and economically marginalized communities should be addressed through context-specific, evidence-based collaborative interventions from the government and its non-government partners to ensure and achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of poverty and hunger reduction.