Prevalence of Food Insecurity in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Food security is one of the main factors of individual and social health. It is of such importance that the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced it as one of the Millennium Development Goals. This study aimed to report the prevalence of food insecurity in Iran. Methods: We searched English databases including; Scopus, Ovid, Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar and also Iranian databases; SID, Magiran and IranMedex for words Iran, food insecurity, and prevalence up to August 2015. The pooled food insecurity prevalence was calculated using Der-Simonian test. All analyses were performed using random effects model with 95% Cl. We assessed heterogeneity of the studies using sub-group and meta-regression analyses. Results: A total of 31 studies were included. The prevalence of food insecurity was 49% among households (95% CI: %40 %59), 67% in children (95% CI: %63 %70), 61% in mothers (95% CI: %35 %88), 49% in adolescents (95% CI: %33 %66) and 65% in the elderly (95% CI: %44 %86). Conclusion: The prevalence of food insecurity is high in Iran. Fiscal policies should promote the nutritional knowledge of household members and also support the households to meet their nutritional needs. This plan should give priority to mid and low socioeconomic groups.