Household Food Insecurity and Health among African American Women in Black Belt Counties of Alabama: Evidence from Mixed-Methods Research Andrew A Zekeri 1* , Cordelia C Nnedu 2 , Sola Popoola 2 and Youssouf Diabate 3 1 Department of Psychology and Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences, Tuskegee University, USA 2 School of Nursing and Allied Health, Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, USA 3 College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences, Tuskegee University, USA * Corresponding author: Andrew A Zekeri, Ph.D, Professor, Department of Psychology and Sociology, Tuskegee University, USA, Tel: 334-727-8086; E-mail: zekeri@mytu.tuskegee.edu Received date: September 26, 2016; Accepted date: October 12, 2016; Published date: October 19, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Zekeri AA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Background: African Americans are more vulnerable to food insecurity than the American population overall. In Alabama’s Black Belt, food insecurity is more than three times the national average level. Yet, little is known about the association between food insecurity and health among African American women in the region. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between food insecurity and health among African American low income mothers in Alabama’s Black Belt. Method: We conducted qualitative and quantitative research among 220 low-income African American mothers in a five-county area of Alabama’s Black Belt region that included Bullock, Dallas, Lowndes, Macon and Wilcox counties. Household food insecurity was measured with the United States Department of Agriculture Household Food Security Survey Module. Bivariate and multiple regression analysis were used to estimate the association between household food insecurity and health status. Results: Over 51% of the mothers and their children live in food insecure households. We present qualitative and quantitative evidence that food insecurity is significantly associated with self-rated health. The mothers living in food insecure household are more likely to report poor general health. Nearly one-fifth of the women interviewed complained of health problems, including high blood pressure, back pain, depression and asthma. Conclusion: The association of food insecurity with health, regardless of causal direction, shows the precarious situations poor single mothers in rural areas face. Reducing food insecurity among these mothers may improve their health status. The future direction of food insecurity research must go beyond just monitoring food insecurity to linking it with medical related out outcomes including health status. Keywords: Food insecurity; Self-rated health; African Americans; Black belt region; Alabama Introduction Food insecurity is defned as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways” [1,2]. Food Insecurity continues to afect millions of American families diferentially; indeed, African American and Hispanic families are more likely to be vulnerable to food insecurity [2]. Data published by Zekeri and Diabate [3] indicated that the prevalence of food insecurity in Alabama’s Black Belt was more than three times the national average level. Te purpose of the present study is to assess the prevalence and the relationship between food insecurity and health status in the Alabama Black Belt where poverty is high and the educational level is low. Te central hypothesis guiding this analysis is that food insecurity among poor mothers is associated with their health status. Tis is suggested because food insecurity is embedded within the context of poverty which is likely to produce anxiety and fear that may take a toll on health. Also, the deprivation of basic needs represented by food insecurity is a possible precursor to suboptimal dietary intakes that may compromise health. Food insecurity may also impact health by competing demands between food and health care expenditures and decreases adherence to medications that should be taken with food. Several studies have examined the impact of food insufciency as measured by a scale derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III on health status among adults in urban areas [4-15]. In these urban studies, self-rated health status is associated with food insufciency. However, reports of the relationship between household food insecurity and health in rural areas are limited. Despite its potential impact on health and well-being, surprisingly little research has been done on the relationship between household food insecurity and health among poor families in rural Alabama’s Black Belt Counties. Terefore, as an extension of previous research [2,3,11,12,16,17], the goal of this present study is to examine the prevalence and the association between food insecurity and health status in a poverty-stricken region of Alabama. Zekeri et al., J Comm Pub Health Nurs 2016, 2:4 DOI: 10.4172/2471-9846.1000138 Research Article OMICS International J Comm Pub Health Nurs, an open access journal ISSN:2471-9846 Volume 2 • Issue 4 • 1000138 Journal of Community & Public Health Nursing J o u r n a l o f C o m m u n i t y & P u b l i c H e a l t h N u r s i n g ISSN: 2471-9846