home food safety practice and household food insecurity: a structural equation modeling approach

Background: food safety and food security are interrelated concepts with a profound impact on the quality of human life. the current study, for the first time, was set to identify associations between home food safety practice and household food insecurity a structural equation modeling approach. methods: in this cross-sectional study, urban households were selected from among 10 health centers of five districts of tehran, iran (2015). the following questionnaires were completed: socioeconomic status (ses), food security and food safety. structural equation modeling (sem) was applied for predicting the relationships between ses, food insecurity, and food safety in households. results: food security was observed in 56% of households. mild, moderate and severe food-insecure house-holds were determined to be 29%, 12%, and 3%, respectively. in addition, the scores of home food safety practice in 37.5%, 33% and 29.5% of the households were classified as desirable, acceptable and weak, respectively. low-educated mothers having husbands with low educational and occupational level had a weaker food safety practice compared to high-educated ones. based on the sem results, an inverse association between food safety practice and food insecurity score was observed (t= -2.89, ɣ= 0.16). conclusion: food insecurity and undesirable food safety practice were relatively prevalent among households. in addition, the economic and social factors could inversely affect both food insecurity and food safety practices.