Food Insecurity among Households with and without Podoconiosis in East and West Gojjam, Ethiopia.

Background: Household food insecurity remained one of the most crucial challenges to economic development and has been aggravated by household health conditions. Nearly one billion people are undernourished of which 98% in developing countries like Ethiopia.

Objective: To assess households' food insecurity among podoconiosis patients and non-podoconiosis in East and West Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia, 2016.

Method: A community based comparative cross sectional study was conducted in East and West Gojjam, 2016. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 208 podoconiosis and 400 non-podoconiosis household heads. Data was collected by using structured and pretested questionnaires. The collected data was cleaned, coded and entered into Epi data then exported to SPSS version 22. Descriptive and inferential statistics was performed. Both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses was employed. The association was measured by adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 95%CI (confidence interval) and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Result: A total of 608 study participants were involved in this study. Food insecurity podoconiosis patients and non-podoconiosis household was 83.7%, 53% respectively (p = 0.0001). Podoconiosis and non- podoconiosis whose heads could not read and write AOR = 5.84, (95% CI: 2.14, 15.95) and AOR = 1.70, (95% CI: 1.06, 2.72) were food insecure respectively. Podoconiosis patients without off farm activities AOR = 4.90, (95% CI: 1.60, 14.95), not using fertilizer AOR = 4.38, (95% CI: 1.15, 16.67) and living at > 5 kilo meter distance from market AOR = 4.47, (95% CI: 1.38, 14.48) were food insecure. Non-podoconiosis heads with no perennial plant AOR = 2.11, (95% CI: 1.17, 3.34), not using improved seeds AOR = 2.20, (95% CI: 1.25, 3.87), no access to asset building program AOR = 2.07, (95% CI: 1.27, 3.34), living in medium and low altitude AOR = 8.87, (95% CI: 1.81, 43.40) and AOR = 10.04, (95% CI: 1.90, 52.93) were food insecure.

Conclusion: Food insecurity was higher among podoconiosis than non-podoconiosis households. Being a female, unable to read and write absence of off farm activities, not using of fertilizers and living in more distance from market were significantly associated with food insecurity among podoconiosis patients. Special emphasis should be given for improvement of food security of podoconiosis and non-podoconiosis households.