What type of study is this?

This is a Quantitative Study study.

October 3, 2025

Food Security and a Child’s Diet Quality Across Households in Rural and Urban Nigeria: A Socioeconomic Inequality Decomposition

Key Points

80.53% of households in Nigeria are food insecure, particularly affecting rural areas at 81.95%.
With wealth ranking increasing, the proportion of food-insecure households declines in rural and pooled samples.
The regression analysis confirmed food insecurity significantly reduces the quality of children's diets.
Programs targeting food access and diverse diets for children are crucial for both urban and rural populations.

Abstract

The substantial number of food-insecure households in Nigeriaand the problem of regional and socioeconomic disparities infood security are raising issues of food system transformationand justice. While knowledge of the gap is of public interest, theempirical validation of the gap is scant and the components ofthe gap linked to differences in socioeconomic characteristicsand income inequality have not been investigated for Nigeria.This paper investigated the socioeconomic disparity in foodsecurity and a child’s diet quality. The specific objectives were(1) to profile the socioeconomic inequalities in food securityand a child’s diet quality, and (2) to determine the relationshipbetween food insecurity and a child’s dietary quality. The studyemployed Round 6 of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey(MICS6) data for Nigeria. A model was specified using a two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression and analyzed using StataMP Version 14. Results revealed 80.53% of households werefood insecure, with a more pronounced estimate for the ruralsector (81.95%) compared to the urban sector (78.08%). Thiswas found to be statistically significant. As wealth ranking ofhouseholds increased from poorest to richest, the proportion ofhouseholds in food insecurity declined for the rural sample andfor the pooled. The regression result showed that foodinsecurity decreased the likelihood of children having a qualitydiet and was statistically significant for rural areas and for thepooled sample (National). Thus, promoting programmes thatenhance food access, availability, and utilization, targeted atthe rural and urban poor, as well as diverse diets for children,are paramount

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