Prevalence and correlates of the food insecurity experience among Australian adults in 2020: results from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia population survey

Australian government food insecurity monitoring and surveillance is sub-optimal and often limited to one or two measures that do not capture food insecurity experience. The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey is a large, population representative survey of Australian households that has been implemented annually since 2001. In 2020 the eight item self-assessed Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) instrument which documents the depth of the lived experience of food insecurity was introduced to the survey. This paper describes the prevalence and correlates of each item of the food insecurity experience amongst the Australian adult population. Overall, 14% of the population reported at least one of the eight items representing an experience of food insecurity, ranging from 9% reporting any one item, to 2% reporting either seven or eight items. Estimates ranged from 3% who reported running out of food to 9% who reported eating only a few kinds of food. Of concern is that 7 to 8% of Australian adults reported experiencing ‘hidden hunger’, that is, being unable to eat healthy food and restricting food intake due to a lack of resources for food. Age, marital status, renting, low income, smoking and health conditions were key correlates of the number of food insecurity items reported. As food insecurity is an indicator of economic and social disadvantage, inclusion of eight items in the 2020 HILDA survey— rather than the usual single item — provides a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of food insecurity in Australia for the first time in a population representative survey commissioned by the government. This social view on food insecurity suggests that cross-government policies are needed to ameliorate the problem including those to impact income and employment, social protection, housing, and cost-of-living.