Affording health during the COVID‐19 pandemic and associated economic downturn

Cost is often cited as a barrier to equitable access to healthy diets, which is concerning due to the strong links between poor diets and increased risk of several chronic health conditions and decreased immunity.Our Healthy Diets Australian Standardised Affordability and Pricing (HD-ASAP) protocol 1 measures the cost and affordability of a household's usual diet, based on reported intakes in the Australian Health Survey, 2 and the cost of a healthy diet, based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines. 3 When diet costs more than 25% of disposable income, households are considered to be in 'food stress'; when more than 30%, healthy diets are considered 'unaffordable' .