Inequality and nutrition: Survey of the Nutritional Situation in Colombia, 2010

Abstract

Objectives:

to calculate inequality indices based on seven variables relating to monetary poverty in children aged between 5 and 17 years and postpartum women of interest to the public nutrition authorities in Colombia.

Methods:

an ecological study was carried out based on 2011 data for monetary poverty and ENSIN obtained in the 2010 survey used to calculate rates based on inequality of ranges, disparity, disproportionality, regression models, and the concept of entropy. The study focused on children aged between 5 and 17 years old and postpartum women up to 48 hours after having given birth.

Results:

the prevalence of monetary poverty was 41.5% (95% CI 35.7 to 47.4). 82.4% of anemia and 68.2% of B12 deficiency could be avoided if there were no poverty. Inequality was found for all the variables except excess television. The Gini index for underweight was 0.20 and for anemia 0.38. Poverty accounts for 78% of house hold food insecurity.

Conclusions:

inequalities in nutrition can be considered to be dynamic and match structural inequalities. It was evident that there is inequality in all variables except excess to watching television or playing video games. Public policy for poor women stresses gender inequality. The distribution of malnutrition in Colombia is not homogeneous and this shows the existence of unjust inequalities affecting the most vulnerable.

Key words
Health inequalities; Food security; Malnutrition; Obesity; Breast feeding; Colombia