Suchergebnisse

OBJECTIVES: In response to a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in Nigeria in March and April 2020, governments in some states imposed lockdowns. While lockdowns may be crucial for disease prevention and control, they also disrupt food systems and economic activity and may have devastating impacts on vulnerable households. This study uses longitudinal data to examine trends in household food insecurity in Nigeria just after lockdowns were imposed and at multiple points later in 2020, and assesses the impacts of lockdowns in spring 2020 on household food insecurity. METHODS: This study utilizes data from the Nigerian General Household Survey 2018/19 and the first seven rounds of the LSMS-ISA National Longitudinal Panel Survey on COVID-19 collected between April-November 2020. We assess trends in household food insecurity, as measured by the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and use a difference-in-difference design to estimate the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on household food insecurity. RESULTS: Household food insecurity in Nigeria increased significantly between Jan/Feb 2019 and the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in April/May 2020. As the pandemic continued, food insecurity decreased between April/May and November of 2020 for all items in the FIES yet remained significantly higher than before the pandemic began. Difference-in-difference models, however, suggest that the lockdowns that were imposed in some Nigerian states did not significantly increase household food insecurity. CONCLUSIONS: When lockdowns were imposed in response to COVID-19 outbreaks in early 2020, many researchers and policymakers worried that households in low- and middle-income countries, many of which rely on informal work and/or daily wages for their livelihoods, would be vulnerable to food insecurity and hunger. Still, lockdowns are a key public health strategy for slowing the spread of infectious disease. As we continue to address COVID-19 and prepare for new emerging infectious diseases, ...

In the United States, the "common law," that regulates ethics review is being overhauled. We ask how UK University Research Ethics Committees (U-RECs), following the American model, have been able to shape social-science research without much commotion, and whether it is time for change. Despite the misbehavior of some ethnographic researchers, most social science research is valued for and motivated by its expert engagement with moral questions regarding discrimination, unfairness, exploitation, and so on, at home and abroad: knowledge of and sensitivity to the complexities around the violation of socio-economic, political, and cultural norms and values are carried high in the social science banner. Yet, since the 1990s, social science research projects in the Anglo-American world have increasingly entrusted research ethics to the scrutiny of U-RECs. This ethical delegation gives a mandate to U-RECs, often without suitable expertise, to vet research projects in a bureaucratic and time-consuming manner. It does not just lead to misunderstandings and frustration; it also privileges research as defined by research ethics committees rather than in negotiation with the ethics we encounter "in the field." Although formal research ethics is clearly confusing early career researchers (and others!) about the role of ethics (which?), its forms have come to shape our disciplines. How did we get there? How do we move forward?

About 690 million people are chronically undernourished, roughly 2 billion experience food insecurity, and around 3 billion people cannot afford enough of the diverse foods needed for a healthy diet, even as all countries of the world have a rising burden on diet-related disease from consumption of unhealthy foods. This research brief aims to extend previous work on diet cost and affordability such as the SOFI 2020 report to address the hidden costs of meal preparation inside the home, after foods are grown or purchased by each household. We start with market prices for the most affordable items with which to prepare a basic meal in 168 countries around the world, then address the cost of switching between pulses and animal protein foods that people may choose, and the costs of switching between raw ingredients and precooked items such as canned beans, tomatoes or fish. To quantify the cost of meal preparation, we focus on fuel use for rural households in East Africa, and consider the cost of the charcoal, gas or electricity required for cooking the least-cost dry pulses in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. This analysis is just a first step towards measuring the cost and affordability of meal preparation, which depends on many factors such as a household's kitchen equipment, water and fuel sources, distance to markets, demographic composition and cost of time. Our work on the hidden costs of meal preparation goes beyond market prices of food itself to consider other barriers to consumption of a healthy diet by each household, and complements true cost accounting that takes account of environmental or social externalities from production and distribution of food, as well as the health externalities involved in food consumption. The data shown here reveal that even just the raw ingredients for a basic plate are often unaffordable for the poorest, and the added cost of time and fuel can make such meals prohibitively expensive. Results suggest two main avenues for policy action. First, governments now can and should use the information on the least costly way to meet dietary standards to inform poverty lines and provide targeted assistance to ensure that citizens can acquire safe and nutritious items in sufficient quantities for an active and healthy life, using local- appropriate safety nets. Second, food policies should recognize the hidden costs of meal preparation that often put healthier, more sustainable diets out of reach. Overcoming the hidden barriers to preparation of healthy meals will require support for helpful forms of food processing such as cooking and canning beans, fish, tomatoes or other foods that preserve or even enhance nutritional values, while simultaneously taking action to limit potentially forms of ultra- processing such as excessive levels of added sugar, salt or trans fat and other factors associated with diet-related disease. Actions that support helpful forms of food processing while limiting harmful processing could help households improve diet quality, while also reducing the time burden, respiratory diseases and climate- change consequences of using wood or charcoal for cooking, as well as other inefficient and inequitable aspects of meal preparation. Taken together, food-based safety nets and improvements in the food environment can make healthy diets affordable for all people at all times, to help every country reach global development goals.