Identification of the Determinaints of Food Insecurity in Tehran Using a Multilevel Model

Given that food insecurity can cause developmental, health and nutrition problems, investigate the factors affecting it seems to be necessary in any society. This study aimed to determine the association between food insecurity and socio-economic factors Tehran. This research is a cross-sectional study, which relies on data from valid questionnaire of six-item USDA, answered by 33793 households in 22 regions of Tehran in 2011. Two-level (household, region) hierarchical regression models were initially performed. All variables such as family size, activity status of family head, marital status of household head, wealth index (WI), number of smokers in the household, addiction, diabetics, hypertension, osteoporosis, under 5-year old child and old person in the household are significantly related to FI. It is maybe caused by large sample size therefore, we used logistic regression multilevel to distinguish between statistically significant and important factors. As a result, family size, number of household smokers, diabetic and hypertensive persons, and having under 5-year old child and old person in the household are not important. This research shows that there are important relationship between food insecurity and the variables of activity status of the family head, marital status of the household head, WI, and having addicted and/or osteoporosis persons in the household.