Table 2.
Prevalence of affirmative responses to questions about food insecurity: Fort Albany (an on-reserve First Nations community, sub-Arctic Ontario, Canada, 2009–2011), International Polar Year Inuit Health Survey and Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), Cycle 2·2 data
| Number and/or prevalence of affirmative responses | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Albany | International Polar Year Inuit Health Survey( 4 ) | CCHS, Cycle 2·2( 11 ) | ||||||||
| Food-secure households (n 19) | Moderately food-insecure households (n 34) | Severely food-insecure households (n 11) | All respondents (n 64) | All respondents (n 2595) | All respondents (n 33 346)‡ | |||||
| Questions*† ‘In the past 12 months…’ | n | % | n | % | n | % | n | % | % | % |
| Adult | ||||||||||
| 1. You and other household members worried that food would run out before you got money to buy more | 3 | 15·8 | 31 | 91·2 | 11 | 100·0 | 45 | 70·3 | 61·1 | 10·0 |
| 2. The food that you and other household members bought just didn't last, and there wasn't any money to get more | 0 | – | 30 | 88·2 | 11 | 100·0 | 41 | 64·1 | 59·7 | 7·7 |
| 3. You and other household members couldn't afford to eat balanced meals‡ | 1 | 5·3 | 31 | 91·2 | 11 | 100·0 | 43 | 67·2 | 50·0 | 8·4 |
| 4. You or other adults in your household ever cut size of meals or skipped meals | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 8 | 72·7 | 9 | 14·1 | 31·2 | 4·3 |
| 5. How often did this happen? | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 8 | 72·7 | 9 | 14·1 | – | 3·3 |
| 6. You (personally) ever ate less than you felt you should | 0 | – | 6 | 17·6 | 8 | 72·7 | 14 | 21·9 | 32·4 | 4·6 |
| 7. You (personally) were ever hungry but did not eat | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 6 | 54·5 | 7 | 10·9 | 24·5 | 2·6 |
| 8. You (personally) lost weight | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 7 | 63·6 | 6 | 9·4 | 18·2 | 1·6 |
| 9. You or other adults in your household ever did not eat for whole day | 0 | – | 0 | – | 7 | 63·6 | 7 | 10·9 | 17·6 | 0·9 |
| 10. How often did this happen? | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 6 | 54·5 | 7 | 10·9 | – | 0·8 |
| Child | ||||||||||
| 11. You or other adults in your household relied on only a few kinds of low-cost food to feed the children | 0 | – | 27 | 79·4 | 9 | 81·8 | 36 | 56·3 | 57·5 | 2·8 |
| 12. You or other adults in your household couldn't feed children a balanced meal‡ | 0 | – | 23 | 67·6 | 7 | 63·6 | 30 | 46·9 | 48·5 | 1·9 |
| 13. The children were not eating enough | 0 | – | 14 | 41·2 | 6 | 54·5 | 20 | 31·3 | 40·4 | 0·8 |
| 14. You or other adults in your household ever cut the size of any of the children's meals | 0 | – | 3 | 8·8 | 6 | 54·5 | 9 | 14·1 | 21·9 | 0·2 |
| 15. Were any of the children ever hungry? | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 6 | 54·5 | 7 | 10·9 | 23·1 | 0·2 |
| 16. Did any of the children ever skip meals? | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 6 | 54·5 | 7 | 10·9 | 19·3 | 0·1§ |
| 17. How often did this happen? | 0 | – | 1 | 2·9 | 6 | 54·5 | 7 | 10·9 | – | 0·1§ |
| 18. Did any of the children ever not eat for a whole day? | 0 | – | 0 | – | 4 | 36·4 | 4 | 6·3 | 13·1 | ∥ |
*The wording of each question as presented to the respondent included explicit reference to resource limitation (e.g. ‘…because there wasn't enough money for food’).
†'Yes’, ‘Often true’ and ‘Sometimes true’ were considered affirmative responses, with the exception of questions 5, 10 and 17, where ‘Almost every month’ and ‘Some months but not every month’ were considered affirmative responses. Data from the International Polar Year Inuit Health Study were not included for questions 5, 10 and 17 because it also included ‘1–2 months’ as an affirmative response.
‡For these questions, the term ‘balanced meal’ was changed to ‘healthy meal’ for the International Polar Year Inuit Health Survey.
§Statistics Canada suggests that these data be interpreted with caution.
∥These data were suppressed due to a cell size <30.