Food insecurity and violence in a prospective cohort of women at risk for or living with HIV in the U.S.

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Creator
  • Conroy, A.A.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, San Francisco
  • Cohen, M.H.
    • Other Affiliation: Stroger Hospital
  • Frongillo, E.A.
    • Other Affiliation: University of South Carolina
  • Tsai, A.C.
    • Other Affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Wilson, T.E.
    • Other Affiliation: State University of New York Downstate Medical Center
  • Wentz, E.L.
    • Other Affiliation: Johns Hopkins University
  • Adimora, A.A.
    • Affiliation: School of Medicine
  • Merenstein, D.
    • Other Affiliation: Georgetown University Medical Center
  • Ofotokun, I.
    • Other Affiliation: Emory University
  • Metsch, L.
    • Other Affiliation: Columbia University
  • Kempf, M.-C.
    • Other Affiliation: University of Alabama at Birmingham
  • Adedimeji, A.
    • Other Affiliation: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
  • Turan, J.M.
    • Other Affiliation: University of Alabama at Birmingham
  • Tien, P.C.
    • Other Affiliation: UCSF
  • Weiser, S.D.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, San Francisco
Abstract
  • Background Food insecurity and violence are two major public health issues facing U.S. women. The link between food insecurity and violence has received little attention, particularly regarding the temporal ordering of events. The present study used data from the Women’s Interagency Human Immunodeficiency Virus Study to investigate the longitudinal association of food insecurity and violence in a cohort of women at risk for or living with HIV. Methods Study participants completed six assessments from 2013–16 on food insecurity (operatio-nalized as marginal, low, and very low food security) and violence (sexual or physical, and psychological). We used multi-level logistic regression, controlling for visits (level 1) nested within individuals (level 2), to estimate the association of experiencing violence. Results Among 2,343 women (8,528 visits), we found that victims of sexual or physical violence (odds ratio = 3.10; 95% confidence interval: 1.88, 5.19) and psychological violence (odds ratio = 3.00; 95% confidence interval: 1.67, 5.50) were more likely to report very low food security. The odds of experiencing violence were higher for women with very low food security at both the current and previous visit as compared to only the current visit. HIV status did not modify these associations. Conclusions Food insecurity was strongly associated with violence, and women exposed to persistent food insecurity were even more likely to experience violence. Food programs and policy must consider persistent exposure to food insecurity, and interpersonal harms faced by food insecure women, such as violence.
Date of publication
Keyword
DOI
Identifier
Resource type
  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
License
  • Attribution 4.0 International
Journal title
  • PLoS ONE
Journal volume
  • 14
Journal issue
  • 3
Language
  • English
Version
  • Publisher
Funder
  • National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH: R01MH095683
  • National Institutes of Health, NIH: U01-AI-103401, U01-AI-103408
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NICHD
  • National Cancer Institute, NCI
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID: U01AI103397
ISSN
  • 1932-6203
Publisher
  • Public Library of Science

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details file.pdf 2023-12-12 Public Download