Exploring the current responses to support people experiencing food and nutrition insecurity access to foods to meet special dietary needs for health conditions

Food security is a social determinant of health. It exists when individuals have regular and reliable access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food, which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. This includes meeting special dietary needs related to health conditions e.g coeliac disease and diabetes. On the other hand, food insecurity is the reduced or unreliable access to nutritionally appropriate or safe foods, or the reduced or unreliable ability to obtain foods in socially conventional ways. According to the National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (NNPAS) over one in eight (13.2% or 1.3 million) households experienced food insecurity in 2023. Food insecurity is a complex public health issue compounded by a variety of socio demographic determinants impacting on the physical, mental and social health and wellbeing of adults and children. The predominant response to food insecurity in Australia, like other high-income countries is through the provision of food relief provided by charitable organisations. In order to procure food for food relief services, organisations typically rely on food donations from the local community, foods donated by local food outlets including supermarkets (these are often close to use by or best before dates) and purchasing food. This often means that these services rely on what they are given varying in both quality (freshness), quantity and nutritional quality. This has implications for all people using food relief as their main source of food but especially where the food in unable to meet the special dietary requirements of specific health conditions. This project seeks to explore both the experiences of people with health conditions experiencing food and nutrition security accessing food and how food relief organisations currently understand the need for such services, how they seek to support their clients of these services to meet their specific food needs and how this could be improved. The recommendations from this research will inform national and state responses and also organisations providing these food relief services. SKILLS ACQUIRED: literature review, quantitative and qualitative data analysis skills and interpretation, communication, scientific writing, oral and written communication skills with not-for-profit organisations and general transferable skills.