IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v226y2019icp63-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The food security and nutrition crisis in Venezuela

Author

Listed:
  • Doocy, Shannon
  • Ververs, Mija-Tesse
  • Spiegel, Paul
  • Beyrer, Chris

Abstract

As Venezuela's economic and political crises continues to evolve, hyperinflation, declining food production and food shortages are contributing to the deterioration of the food and nutrition situation. While official data is largely unavailable, food security and nutrition data from a variety of sources suggest that nearly the entire population is food insecure and that prevalence of acute malnutrition among children is reaching crisis levels in vulnerable populations. In the most recent national survey, 80% of households were food insecure and most households receiving government food assistance reported only occasional receipt. Prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under five increased in vulnerable communities across many states, surpassing serious or critical thresholds in multiple states. Hospitals across the country are reporting increases in both the number and proportion of pediatric consultations and admissions with acute malnutrition, and malnutrition deaths are increasingly common. Declining food security, increases in prevalence of acute malnutrition among children in vulnerable communities, rising pediatric hospital admissions with acute malnutrition and clinician reports of child deaths due to acute malnutrition are indicative of a crisis. The response to the nutrition and food security crisis to date has been limited. There is an urgent need to begin taking steps to address widespread food insecurity and to support treatment for children with acute malnutrition.

Suggested Citation

  • Doocy, Shannon & Ververs, Mija-Tesse & Spiegel, Paul & Beyrer, Chris, 2019. "The food security and nutrition crisis in Venezuela," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 63-68.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:63-68
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619300668
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gregori Galofre-Vila, 2023. "Scarring through the German hyperinflation," Documentos de Trabajo EH-Valencia (DT-EHV) 2302, Economic History group at the Universitat de Valencia.
    2. Alice Blukacz & Alejandra Carreño Calderon & Alexandra Obach & Báltica Cabieses & Jeniffer Peroncini & Alejandra Oliva, 2022. "Perceptions of Health Needs among Venezuelan Women Crossing the Border in Northern Chile during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-22, November.
    3. Ahrens, Achim & Casalis, Marine & Hangartner, Dominik & Sánchez, Rodrigo, 2024. "Cash-based interventions improve multidimensional integration outcomes of Venezuelan immigrants," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    4. Abdurazzakova, Dilnovoz & Kosec, Katrina & Parpiev, Ziyodullo, 2024. "Women’s involvement in intra-household decision-making and infant and young child feeding practices in Central Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:63-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.