McClennon, StephPiperata, Barbara ASchmeer, Kammi KHoehn, NatashaBrown, GarielleKushlyk, KristanWilson, Warren M2022-03-212022-03-212022-03-23McClennon, S., BA Piperata, B. A., Schmeer, K. K., Hoehn, N., Brown, G., Kushlyk, K., & Wilson, W. M. (2022, March 24). Relationship between food security and dietary diversity in Nicaraguan households [Poster presentation]. Annual Meeting of the Human Biology Association. https://www.humbio.org/2022-annual-meeting/http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114503In 2020, nearly one-in-three people globally lacked access to adequate food; that is, they were food insecure. Food insecurity (FI) has four dimensions – availability, access, utilization, and stability – and is linked to poor health outcomes. Our understanding of the relationship between FI and health, however, is compromised by the fact that most research on FI focuses on the access dimension. This has resulted in a poor understanding of the utilization dimension; that is, how people cope with inadequate access to food as manifest by food choice. Here, we explore the relationship between maternal perceptions of food access and food choice, measured as dietary diversity, in 706 Nicaraguan households across urban, peri-urban and rural settings, and hypothesize that as food access worsens, dietary diversity will decline. Access was measured using the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale. Dietary data were collected via a locally-developed, 7-day food-frequency questionnaire and converted to a household dietary diversity score (HDDS). The relationship was analyzed via multiple regression and ANOVA. We found that 82% of households experienced insufficient access to food and had a mean HDDS=10.9±1.2 out of a maximum score of 12. As access to food worsened, dietary diversity declined (r2=0.15, p<0.001), and the effect of food access on HDDS varied across settings (F=3.53, p=0.02). While we found a relationship between food access and HDDS, the high prevalence of insufficient access to food combined with a high average HDDS suggests that HDDS is too blunt an instrument to capture the lived experience.engUnless otherwise indicated, this material is protected by copyright and has been made available with authorization from the copyright owner. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.food securitydietary diversityLatin American and Caribbean Food Security ScaleHousehold Dietary Diversity Scoresconference poster10.1002/ajhb.2374010.11575/PRISM/39657