The Association between Social Welfare, Food Security and Diet Diversity among Afghan Immigrant Households in the Southern Areas of Tehran Province

Background and Objectives: Due to the importance of ameliorating the food security status of immigrants, as one of the main vulnerable groups at the international level, in the present study, the association between food security, diet diversity, socio-economic factors, and social welfare of Afghan immigrant households in the Southern areas of Tehran Province was investigated.  Materials & Methods: Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 317 Afghan immigrant households in 2019. Household Food Insecurity Assess Scale (HFIAS) was used to assess food security status. Then after presenting descriptive statistics of socioeconomic factors, the association between these factors and food security was assessed. Results: The results showed that about 11.3% of immigrant households were food secure, while 11.7, 40.7 and 36.6% suffered from marginal, moderate and severe food insecurity, respectively. Assessing the consumed food groups by these households showed that about 88% of them had a high level of diet diversity, while 3.4% experienced a low level of diet diversity. The significant association between food insecurity and diet diversity was not found, but the association between social welfare, food security, and diet diversity was confirmed. The occupation and income of the head of household, and the number of male children were significantly associated with food security and diet diversity among Afghan immigrant households. Conclusion: Due to the importance of socio-economic factors in designing and implementation of policies aimed at promoting food security status, equal job opportunities and mitigating the legal and administrative constraints of applying Afghan immigrants to various jobs are recommended. Moreover, given the inverse association between social welfare and food insecurity, enacting and implementing policies resulting in the improvement of households' access to welfare facilities and also improving the level of sub-index of social welfare are suggested for improving food security status in this group.