National Data on the Prevalence of Food Insecurity in Australia: Implications for Health Promotion

作者：Katherine Kent · 发表于：Health Promotion Journal of Australia · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/hpja.70112 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations、Child Nutrition and Water Access

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released new data showing that one in eight Australian households experienced food insecurity in 2023 [1]. This marks the first nationally representative prevalence estimates collected by the federal government in a decade, and importantly, the first time the ABS has adopted an internationally comparable, validated and sensitive measure of household food insecurity. The findings confirm that food insecurity is a mainstream public health and equity challenge, warranting urgent attention from health promotion professionals, policymakers and researchers. In high-income countries, food insecurity is best understood as the inability to consistently acquire adequate, nutritious and culturally acceptable food in socially acceptable ways [2]. Beyond food availability, this definition incorporates the concept of agency—the capacity to exercise choice and autonomy over what foods are eaten, when, and how [3]. Food insecurity therefore includes not only hunger or inadequate dietary intake, but also constrained dietary choices, reliance on food charity and loss of dignity in food acquisition [4]. This broader framing is important for health promotion, as it acknowledges that health and wellbeing are undermined not just by a lack of food, but by erosion of control, cultural appropriateness and social participation [5]. Until now, national prevalence data on food insecurity in Australia came from the 2011 to 2012 National Nutrition and Physical...