Food insecurity and anaemia risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: Increasing evidence has suggested an association between food insecurity and the risk of anaemia. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to examine the associations between food insecurity and anaemia risk. Setting: Pertinent studies were identified by searching PubMed and EMBASE databases up to August 2017. Data were available from nineteen studies; seventeen studies were cross-sectional and two studies were longitudinal. Risk ratios of 95993 individual participants from twelve different countries in these studies were pooled for the meta-analysis. Results: The results showed that there was an overall positive relationship between food insecurity and anaemia risk (OR = 1.27; 95 % CI 1.13, 1.40). Similar results were observed for Fe-deficiency anaemia (OR = 1.45; 95 % CI 1.04, 1.86). These results revealed that food insecurity at two levels, including mild food insecurity (OR = 1.15; 95 % CI 1.00, 1.31) and moderate food insecurity (OR = 1.36; 95 % CI 1.23, 1.48), increased the risk of anaemia. In addition, it was found that age had an impact on the associations between food insecurity and anaemia risk (OR = 1.22; 95 % CI 1.09, 1.36). Age subgroup analysis indicated that food insecurity significantly increased the risk of anaemia among infants/toddlers (OR = 1.17; 95 % CI 1.05, 1.29) and adult women (OR = 1.35; 95 % CI 1.16, 1.54). Conclusions: It seems that infants, toddlers and adult women in food-insecure households are at a higher risk of anaemia. To prevent anaemia in food-insecure households, these age groups may require more nutritional support.