This thesis examines the enduring problem of food insecurity in Africa, with a particular focus on Ethiopia and Kenya. It considers food insecurity both in acute terms - the occurrence of famine and chronic terms - famine vulnerability. More specifically it provides a new interpre~tion of the causes of food insecurity in East Africa, with respect to some of the causal factors and viable solutions. It does so by locating the occurrence of famine, and countries vulnerability to it, in the context of the global food system. The global food system is, as yet, an under-examined factor in contemporary famine analysis, particularly in East Africa and this thesis aims to explore it more comprehensively than hitherto. This thesis also makes a substantive contribution to understanding the concept of Food Sovereignty in an African context. Food Sovereignty deserves to be a more significant part of contemporary narratives that at present dominate the political and social dilemmas about food insecurity. However there are serious obstacles such as political relationships, land tenure and the industrial system of agriculture that hinder the development of Food Sovereignty as a viable option. Natural disasters, demographic pressures and ill conceived economic policies are an ongoing part of the story but in essence food insecurity is ultimately political. This thesis concludes that Food Sovereignty should be explored as a political . solution to a political problem.

This study addresses the overarching topic of food insecurity by giving voice to individuals who are dedicating their careers toward combating child food insecurity throughout their communities. Voices are uplifted through the representation of narratives by volunteer coordinators overseeing child feeding programs, which have been established throughout Kentucky as an effort to help alleviate child hunger. This study is guided by London’s theory on career motivation, with the outcomes of this study serving as a pilot for future research centered around individuals working to combat child food insecurity. The narratives collected from this study will be used as a resource for generating public conversation, spreading awareness, and to “tell the story” in regards to child hunger across Kentucky.

Food insecurity is on the rise throughout the United States. Today more than 11.6% of American household’s face food insecurity. Many of these food insecure households reside in the suburbs. Despite these rising rates of food insecurity, the issue of suburban food insecurity has largely gone unnoticed. In this paper, I use Orange County as a case study to investigate how the rise of poverty in the suburbs relates to the issue of suburban food insecurity. Some questions this paper addresses are: What are the driving forces of poverty in the suburbs? What barriers to food security do suburban residents face and how are they different from urban areas? And lastly, what are the next steps to solving suburban food insecurity?

The obesity epidemic is a major public health concern, where the prevalence rates amongst the American children population have more than doubled since the 1980s. Among overweight children, the risk of becoming an overweight or obese adult is 70% higher than children of normal weight, and obese children are more likely to remain obese into adulthood and face a number of morbidities associated with it, including lower quality of life and increased financial burden. In this research, we examined the relationship between household food security and obesity among children and adolescents between the ages of 2-18 years old. We used data from the NHANES 2005-2006 (n= 3,432). Amongst the children aged 2-18 years, 31.21% were determined to be obese or at-risk for obesity. Children aged 2-18 years were 1.27 times more likely to be obese or at-risk when living in a food insecure household after adjusting for race/ethnicity. Adolescents aged 12-18 years were 1.47 times more likely to be obese or at-risk when living in a food insecure household. No significant association was found for young children aged 2-11 years. After adjusting for race/ethnicity and poverty level status, however, the association between food insecurity and obesity was not significant for either age group. Further investigation of other potential confounders could explain the association for both young children and adolescents. There are other factors, like social and societal, that influence the trends of obesity. Future programming could work to ameliorate the conditions of food insecurity and other infrastructure factors.

Le sentiment d’insécurité vis à vis de son emploi, en tant que facteur de stress, influence négativement le comportement lié au travail des employés. Dans cette recherche, nous nous sommes intéressés à la relation entre l’insécurité de l’emploi et le comportement innovateur des employés, étant donné que cette dernière n’a été pas étudiée dans la littérature. Le but de notre recherche est de savoir dans quelle mesure l’insécurité de l’emploi diminue le comportement innovateur des employés.Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons formulé l’hypothèse fondamentale que l’insécurité de l’emploi diminue les motivations d’un employé à innover et par conséquent diminue son comportement innovateur. La motivation d’un employé à innover a été analysée sous l’angle des attentes en matières de performance et d’image : un employé est motivé à innover lorsqu’il cherche à accroitre ses gains en matière de performance ou à améliorer son image dans l’organisation. À contrario, un employé s’abstient d’innover lorsqu’il perçoit qu’elle risque d’influencer négativement son image.Nous avons testé notre hypothèse sur un échantillon de 343 employés de différentes industries situées en France. Le résultat de notre recherche a montré que le sentiment d’insécurité de l’emploi est effectivement lié négativement au comportement innovateur des employés, au sens où cette insécurité diminue ses gains perçus en matière de performance et d’image. Que ce soit au plan académique ou au plan du management des organisations, l’apport de notre recherche consiste à proposer l’insécurité de l’emploi comme un nouvel antécédent du comportement innovateur des employés. / Ob insecurity or the threats of unemployment has been recognized to be a stress maker at the workplaces, leading to a decrease in productive behaviors in organizations. This doctoral dissertation is interested in the relationship between job insecurity and employees’ innovative behavior, considering the fact that no previous studies have been made on the latter. The aim is to find out by which means job insecurity affects an employee’s decisions on the introduction of new product ideas, applying new work methods, and suggestions about new ways to achieve the objectives at the workplace. To answer this question, this hypothesis was suggested and tested, that job insecurity reduces the employee’s motivation to innovate and therefore reduces its innovative behavior. An employee’s motivation has been studied in terms of his expectations of performance and image. An employee is motivated to innovate in order to increase its gains in performance or image in the organization, whereas an employee prevents himself to innovate when he perceives the risks of endangering his image. After defining the concept and its components, we tested our hypothesis on a sample of 343 employees of different companies in France. We found that job insecurity is negatively related to innovative behavior of an employee. While he loses his motivation to gain, he does no more innovation, as he looks no more for either performance or improving his/her image. Either through an academic way or an organization management, the contribution of this research represents job insecurity as a new antecedent of employee’s innovative behavior in the workplace.

No description available.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to examine the association between food insecurity and untreated dental caries among U.S. children and adults and to investigate the effect of participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on dental caries among U.S. adults. METHODS: Our sample was derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles 2011-2012 and 2013-2014. Food security was measured as overall food security status (full food secure/ food insecure) and household-level food security (full, marginal, low, and very low). SNAP participation in the past 12 months was self-reported (yes/ no). The main outcome variable was untreated dental caries (none vs. one or more). Descriptive, Bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationship among food insecurity, SNAP participation, and untreated caries. RESULTS: Our results suggest that food insecure children were more likely to have untreated caries compared to full food secure counterparts, after controlling for potential confounders (OR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.11-1.72). On household-level food security, children from marginal and very low food secure households had significantly higher odds of untreated caries compared to children from fully food secure households (OR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.10-2.01 and OR: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.12-2.26 respectively). Moreover, our findings suggest significant association between overall food security status and dental caries among U.S. adults (OR: 1.35, 95% CI: 1.05-1.74). We also observed a significant association between the severity of household food insecurity and untreated caries among adults after adjusting for confounders (P=0.04). SNAP participants were more likely to have untreated caries compared to non-SNAP participants (OR: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.19-1.87). The interaction of food insecurity and SNAP participation was not significant. However, SNAP participants from all levels of food security had higher prevalence ratio of dental caries compared to non-SNAP participants, regardless of food security status. CONCLUSION: Food insecurity was negatively associated with dental caries among U.S. children and adults. In addition, SNAP participation had adverse association with dental caries among U.S. adults. Further research is needed to more comprehensively understand the impact of food insecurity and food assistance programs on oral health. / 2021-06-16T00:00:00Z

MSc (Med) Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / Abstract not included on cd

Delningsekonomin har framkallat stor kontrovers eftersom förespråkare hävdar att det ger effektivitet, möjlighet och flexibilitet medan kritiker hävdar att det bland annat förvärrar ojämlikhet. Med studien undersöks ifall arbetet på plattformarna och osäkerheten inom delningsekonomin kan bidra till den ökande ojämlikheten. Detta diskuteras utifrån resultat från intervjuer med leverantörer på plattformen Airbnb, alla från Gotland, och en intervju med en delningsekonomi-expert. Dessa jämförs med studier gjorda i USA. Moderna arbetsmarknaden kännetecknas av en flexibilitet där risker har förflyttats från arbetsgivare till arbetstagare. Dessa risker påverkar framförallt de som arbetar inom delningsekonomin. I delningsekonomin är det lägre (ofta icke-existerande) facklig organisering och inga kollektivavtal vilket gör att arbetarna är sämre skyddade på arbetsmarknaden och ansvaret ligger hos arbetstagaren. De har ofta ingen tillgång till social trygghet vid sjukdom, arbetslöshet och pension. De exkluderas ofta från trygghetssystemet. Delningsekonomin kan tänkas stärka vad som tidigare orsakat ojämlikhet, vilket var att folk började behandlas som oberoende entreprenörer och att de ekonomiska och sociala riskerna med anställning blev den enskilda arbetstagarens ansvar. Delningsekonomin kan framförallt tänkas påverka ojämlikheten om den växer sig större, vilket den förväntas göra. På grund av att det är högt utbildade utförare som använder plattformen för att öka sin nuvarande inkomst bidrar delningsekonomin till ökade inkomster hos övre medelklassen. Denna grupp utför arbeten som traditionellt utförts av de med en lägre utbildningsstatus. Alla respondenter väljer att dela på plattformen för att få in en extra inkomst utöver sin huvudsakliga inkomst. Detta tyder på att deltagandet på Airbnb här på Gotland skulle kunna ge en utträngningseffekt. Inkomsterna för de som vanligtvis skulle ha gjort exempelvis städningen eller det administrativa arbetet på ett hotell utför istället av Airbnb-utövaren och därmed hamnar inkomsterna hos de som redan har en stabil inkomst. Resultaten bland intervjuerna pekar på att delningsekonomin främst är till för de med högre kompetens och en högre utbildning. / The sharing economy has provoked controversy – advocates claim that it provides opportunity and flexibility while critics argue that it exacerbates inequality. This study investigates whether the work on the platforms and the uncertainty in the sharing economy can contribute to the increasing inequality. This is discussed based on results from independent interviews with suppliers on the platform Airbnb and with a sharing economy expert. These are compared with studies done in the United States.  In the sharing economy, the union organization is often non-existent and there are no collective agreements, which means the employees are excluded from the security system. The sharing economy can therefore strengthen the trends that previously caused inequality: people treated as independent entrepreneurs and the economic and social risks of employment are the responsibility of the worker. Not everyone can do well in the sharing economy. The platform-earnings goes to those with a already fairly good income - to do well on Airbnb, you need some kind of capital to rent out. Findings show us that highly educated people use Airbnb to increase their current income - this could mean that the sharing economy contributes to increased incomes in the upper middle class. This group performs work that has traditionally been performed by people with lower educational status, whose jobs could be "pushed away".

Poverty is a historical development curse in Tanzania, which has incited extensive institutional reforms and policy changes and received numerous analyses in development research literature. Paradoxically, taking actions to study and alleviate poverty have increased with its continuing severity. A substantial body of research on poverty in the country suggests that, the vast majority of these studies focus on the content rather than the context of poverty alleviation processes. Specifically, the focus has been on: ideas, interests and struggles for resources between political leaders and bureaucrats believed to be taking place at the expense of the poor; ill-informed and unrealistic development policies and strategies; anti-development behaviour and tendencies of the peasants and their alleged conservatism and resistance to modernity, and weak incentive structures of the economy. There is little focus on the character and dynamics of the (historical) institutional context in which these economic conditions, struggles and policy initiatives emerge and take place. Motivated by the disappointing results of anti-poverty initiatives and weaknesses of previous studies, this study uses historical institutional impact analysis guided by institutionalist theory to analyse the problem. The central argument is that the existence and functioning character of institutions are necessary conditions for any human development activity. So, acceptance of the crucial importance of historically oriented institutional context analysis in understanding poverty alleviation initiatives and outcomes is imperative. The study draws on primary and secondary data collected through documentary review and interview methods to explain the ways in which institutional reforms result in an institutional order tolerant of poverty and which create conditions that perpetuate it. It does this by exploring the mode of historical institutional development and by examining the functioning character of the institutional order in respect of poverty alleviation. The study argues that achieving success in poverty alleviation related reforms is dependent on proper understanding of institutional realities of Tanzanian society and the functioning character of the existing institutional order. It proposes a reform process in which institutional legacies and their impact on society become the focus of the reform process itself. The findings indicate that, while reforms and policy changes have taken place and new patterns of behaviour introduced, the logics of institutions central to development and poverty alleviation have not, been fundamentally altered and new patterns of behaviour have simply perpetuated it. Specifically, the findings suggest: first, that institutional reforms pursued by the government are inadequate due to misconception of institutional problems of Tanzanian society; second, that the reforms have created new conditions which perpetuate poverty; and, third, that fundamental character of the functioning of the Tanzanian institutional order will need to change before such anti-poverty measures can hope to succeed. Thus, the study offers a correction to ill-informed poverty analysis by providing an alternative account of the root cause of poverty while insisting that a better understanding of the failure of poverty alleviation requires a strong focus on the historical institutional realties of the country.