Dr Conal Smith

A national Food Security Index for Aotearoa.

Food security extends beyond food alone, it reflects the broader social, economic, and environmental determinants that structure people’s everyday lives. To understand the drivers of food security in Aotearoa, it is therefore necessary to be able to measure food security at the individual household or whānau level. We developed a food security index using data from the Household Economic Survey’s material wellbeing module (2019 to 2024 waves) and validated it against administrative data on health outcomes and housing characteristics from Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure and against the food security index collected through the New Zealand Health Survey. Compared to other New Zealand measures of food security, the food security index reflects enforced lack of access to food rather than relying on service usage data (such as accessing food banks) where operational decisions by providers may bias measured food insecurity. Analysis of the food security index shows that food security is strongly tied to income, and material deprivation more widely, but is more strongly associated with direct access to food resources than is the case for material deprivation measures. However, after controlling for general deprivation, the strongest associations were observed with measures of direct access to food resources. Significant variation in relative levels of food security and food insecurity was also observed across geographic locations and settings throughout Aotearoa.