FACTORS RELATED TO ACCESS TO NUTRITIOUS FOODS AND THE ASSOCIATION WITH CANCER MORTALITY IN THE SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES (Under the direction of Lee Mobley, PhD) Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality in the United States. However, nutrient rich diets are known protective factors against this disease. Unfortunately, many areas in the United States do not have adequate access to nutritious foods. This study aims to examine cancer mortality rates in these counties in relationship to access to food. The main hypothesis is that greater accessibility to nutritious food sources in counties is associated with lower county cancer mortality rates. Methods: Exploratory spatial cluster analysis was used to determine whether patterns of observed cancer mortality were spatially random or not. Finding spatial structure, spatial regression was used to determine the association between several factors related to nutritional access in relation to cancer mortality rates in counties in the Southeastern US. Results: Results from this study indicated that cancer mortality rates are clustered in the southeast into areas with higher than average and areas with lower than average risk. The patterns are statistically significantly different than would have been observed by chance, using a 5% level of significance. Spatial regression indicated a positive statistically significant relationship between the number of households that live more than one mile away from a grocery store with no vehicle access and increased cancer mortality (p=.00002). Conclusion: Further research should be conducted to determine which factors in counties are contributing to cancer mortality. Results showed that although individuals have access to healthy foods, they may also have equal access to unhealthy food selections. Behaviors should be assessed to find out what factors influence food choices.

In the current South African context, job insecurity has become a phenomenon to be reckoned with. Although research on this phenomenon is still scarce, a growing interest in the perceived experience of job insecurity and its different underlying constructs is obvious from the increase of job insecurity research. A comprehensive summary of previous research studies and relevant outcomes is therefore relevant. Up to now, South African studies on job insecurity have accepted the assumptions and context of international research studies on job insecurity. It is now time to investigate the influence of the South Afncan context on this phenomenon and to include this background in future studies. The main objective of this study was to review, investigate, compare, evaluate and interpret existing research, conducted internationally and nationally, in order to set a research agenda through proposing a theoretical model for job insecurity in South Afncan organisations. The model will primarily serve as an academic tool to new research scholars to identify new research problems, existing sources of information, relevant measuring instruments, and contextual variables that may be of interest. The model will also be applicable as a management tool to understand and deal with job insecurity in South Ahcan organisations. A qualitative, descriptive research design was followed to perform content analysis and an extensive literature review. Results of the qualitative content analysis were enhanced with semi-structured interviews with managers from different organisations (N = 24). Results indicated gaps between international and South African research studies as well as the gaps indicated between theory and practice. This was indicated by a comparison between the South African research results and the results from the semi-structured interviews with selected managers. These results were integrated into a proposed model for job insecurity in order to serve as a guideline for future research. It also serves as a tool for managers to be aware of the presence of job insecurity, and to enable them to improve their management intervention. Conclusions and limitations of the study were discussed and recommendations for organisations and for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Changes such as economic uncertainty, global competition, and an increase in mergers and acquisitions in the past decade have forced organisations to improve organisational effectiveness and streamline operations through downsizing, outsourcing, and restructuring. These actions are associated with large scale workforce reductions. For many employees these changes in working life cause feelings of insecurity of the nature and future existence of their jobs. Interest in the experiences of job loss, job insecurity and stressors associated with organisational restructuring, merging and downsizing has grown considerably during the past few years. The primary objective of this study was to determine the relationship between job insecurity and general health of employees working in a government organisation in the Free State. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A stratified random sample was taken from various occupational levels of a government organisation in the Free State. A total of 130 employees were included of which 83 participants responded. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The Job Insecurity Inventory (JII), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), as well as a biographical questionnaire were utilised for the purpose of the study. Results confirmed the reliability and validity of the various measuring instruments. Affective job insecurity showed an association with increased levels of social dysfunction, anxiety and sleeplessness and severe depression. Cognitive job insecurity was however not found to correlate with any of the GHQ subscales. Multiple regression analyses indicated that affective job insecurity holds predictive value with regard to severe depression (12%), as well as social dysfunction (10%). Conclusions were made, limitations of the current research were discussed and recommendations for future research were put forward. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

Food banks are potent symbols of the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity in affluent countries, yet they have received very little academic attention in New Zealand. Previous food bank research in this country has mainly been instigated by the voluntary welfare sector and has focused on client characteristics and patterns of use. This study expands on these concepts in the local context from a socio-spatial perspective, and examines food banks from both a service provision and service user perspective. This study aims to: document the growth of the food bank industry and determine its role within the broader voluntary welfare sector; determine patterns and trends in usage; examine client characteristics, neighbourhoods and reasons for use; and discuss the implications of food bank use and how dependency on food banks may be reduced. This study examines non-identifiable socio-demographic and address data obtained for food bank clients (n=1695) from a large Christchurch social service agency for 2005. Data from a second large Christchurch social service agency is used to illustrate certain spatial and temporal trends. Additional interviews and questionnaires are conducted with staff and volunteers in the local food bank industry, and with the clients themselves. Results show that food bank use appears not to have decreased in recent years. Maori, sole parents/sole caregivers and beneficiaries are over-represented amongst food bank clients, while there is an apparent under-use of the food bank by other key groups. Poverty and food insecurity appears to be dispersed in Christchurch and is not confined to the most deprived neighbourhoods. A range of factors contributes to food insecurity and food bank use, with the main reasons relating to lack of income, household bills and unaffordable housing. Changes in macro social and economic policy, rather than increased client education, will contribute to a decrease in the need for food banks.

Ce travail interroge les parcours de migration féminine précaire en tant que lieux d’expérience, de formation et de reconstruction de soi. Il s’intéresse aux dynamiques (trans)formatives de l’individu, auxquelles il associe l’émergence de postures de sujet et, plus précisément, d’un sujet culturel. Notre réflexion se situe dans le cadre d’une épistémologie centrée sur l’individu et ses espaces socioculturels et politiques d’action et de construction de soi. Nous avons donc fait appel à la recherche biographique en éducation, ainsi qu’à la perspective sociologique emmenée par l’Ecole de Chicago. La méthodologie qualitative de recueil et d’analyse des données s’y est inspirée et nous avons accordé la priorité à la parole singulière traduisant la migration en tant qu’expérience subjective. Cela nous a permis d’appréhender les parcours migratoires précaires en tant que projets de soi où le culturel participe à des processus de transformation du sujet, d’adaptation et d’apprentissage, mobilisés et organisés autour d’une revendication de pouvoir d’agir. / This work aims to study feminine precarious migration paths as places of experience, of learning and self reconstruction. It takes interest in individual transformation dynamics to which it associates the emergence of subjective postures and, more precisely, those of a cultural subject. Our intention relies on an epistemology focused on the individual and its socio-cultural and political spaces of action and self construction. We have thus chosen the biographical research in education as well as the sociological perspective of The Chicago School. They have brought on a qualitative methodology of data collection and analysis, helping us to focus on singular speeches, expressing migration as a subjective experience. Precarious migration paths thus appear as projects of self, where the cultural takes part in the subject’s process of transformation, adaptation and learning, mobilized and organized around a claim of power.

Food security in Africa is a foremost development challenge. Dominant approaches to addressing food security concentrate on availability and increasing production. This 'productionist' focus arguably limits the capacity of government policies to address contemporary food problems. It does so by obscuring both the specific food insecurity dynamics linked to the continent's ongoing urban transitions, as well as the potential for more systemic food strategies. Yet existing research provides an inadequate historical understanding of how a production and supply-oriented bias has emerged and become established in the African context. This undermines the capacity of scholars and policymakers to critique and reform food security thought and practice. The thesis addresses this gap in knowledge by critically and historically examining the emergence of food scarcity as a specific problem of government in a particular African context: colonial Kenya. Understanding how colonial officials and other actors conceived of and responded to food scarcities in Kenya is the primary question addressed. The specific roles and duties of the state in relation to this problem are also investigated. The thesis employs a Foucauldian-inspired approach to the historical analysis of government and problematizations. Primary data were gathered from archives in the United Kingdom. The argument is that food scarcity, as a problem of government, shifted from an uncertain and localized rural issue to a risk encompassing the balance between market supply and demand at a territorial scale. The role of the state shifted from a last-resort provider of relief to a regulator of maize production and demand, with a focus on ensuring adequate supply for territorial self-sufficiency. Accordingly, anti-scarcity techniques became increasingly economic and calculative in nature, and longer term in focus. This mode of conceiving and addressing food scarcity existed in Kenya by the end of the Second World War, and was stabilized in the immediate post-war period. Elements of this system are recognizable in contemporary food security policies in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. The thesis contributes to historical knowledge of African food insecurity and colonial government. It moves beyond previous work by focusing on Kenya, and by examining food scarcity as a distinct problem of colonial government. It enhances knowledge of the conditions under which contemporary modes of food governance have come into existence.

Food insecurity is characterized by the consumption of low quantity or quality foods, worrying about food supply and/or acquiring foods through socially unacceptable means (Alaimo et al., 2001). Food insecurity is associated with poor physical and mental health putting food insecure students at an increased risk of low performance on standardized assessments (Howard, 2011). This mixed methods study aimed at establishing the relationship between food insecurity and EQAO examination performance in Ottawa, and describes the strategies used to mitigate the effects of food insecurity in schools. The results unveiled that while schools use community-based interventions and provide healthful eating education to parents, food insecurity remains associated to lower test scores on the EQAO grade 3 and grade 6 standardized examinations. As such, current interventions being used within schools in Ottawa are not adequately meeting the needs of food insecure students.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / This project strives to discover the most efficient way in which we can connect the edible food that would be sent to rot in a landfill with the people who lack access to adequate and healthful food. Existing charitable food distribution programs will be assessed so as to determine how to create a food distribution event that is far-reaching, well attended and effective. This research will be translated into a comprehensive plan outlining best practices for carrying out a distribution event on a college campus.

While reducing food insecurity is a major health initiative, most studies and programs focus only on health-related outcomes and not on other types of hardships. This secondary data analysis of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study examined the relationship between food insecurity and housing instability with social support, parental depression, and material hardship in vulnerable fathers. Using structural equation modeling on Wave 3 data, the final resulting model was X2 (4, N= 4898) = 3.72 at p = .444. For fathers, material hardship, depression, social support impact the relationship between food insecurity and housing instability. This research has implications for programs and services that may serve low income, single, or minority fathers and families to provide supports to improve food and house instabilities. Agencies and organizations should examine material hardship, not just health-related outcomes. They should provide services for mental health concerns as well as facilitate greater social support.

Background: When children experience food insecurity, in addition to poverty, their resultant inadequate food intake and disease often leads to the development of proteinenergy malnutrition and ultimately to death. In South Africa, where three out of every four children live in poverty, food insecurity and its multiple negative effects are consequently among the most urgent social issues affecting households and their children. Since household food insecurity is thought to be associated with increased child mortality, it is important to study any such associations amongst South African children to determine additional risk factors for child mortality. Objectives: The main objective of this study was to establish the relationship between household food security and mortality in children under the age of five years in the Agincourt field site, Limpopo Province, in 2004. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study of secondary data obtained from the 2004 census questionnaire and food security module of the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System in rural Limpopo Province was conducted, involving a total of 7,790 black children under the age of five years. Certain exposure variables were selected for use as indicators of food security and these were analysed with respect to child mortality using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. Results: Based on the outcome indicators of food consumption, 37% of the study population were found to have experienced household food insecurity in 2004, reporting insufficient food for the entire household in the previous month and year. The limited dietary diversity and insufficient quantities of food experienced by the majority of the population were supplemented by the local growth of food crops and the gathering of food from the bush. Of the 79 children (1%) under the age of five years who died in 2004, the majority (24%) died of HIV-related diseases, in addition to deaths caused by diarrhoea, respiratory infections, and malnutrition. Child mortality was found to be associated with the reporting of “unknown” for several indicators of food security. Additionally, expecting the food availability of the household in the coming year to be less than that of the current year (that is, the prediction of future household food insecurity) was significantly associated with an increased risk of under-five child mortality compared to the expectation of the same amount of food the following year (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.0), and with a greatly increased risk of mortality compared to the prediction of more food (future household food security) (adjusted OR 4.4). The latter association was age-specific to infants under the age of one year (adjusted OR 5.6) and cause-specific to HIV deaths (adjusted OR 5.9). Conclusions: Following a significant trend in this study in the rural north-east of South Africa, future household food security was inversely related to, and hence protective over, childhood mortality in 2004, even after controlling for confounding factors. Further research on the associations between household food security and under-five child mortality, conducted following the development of a standard nation-wide food security measurement tool specific to South African household conditions, would confirm household food insecurity as a significant risk factor for under-five child mortality and, consequently, as a target for future policies in the reduction of child mortality in this country.