Key messages

What is the issue and why is it important?

• Diet has significant health impacts. The high overweight and obesity rates in OECD countries that co-exist with food insecurity and poor nutrition, reduces the health, quality of life, and economic welfare of the population.
• Effective food policies and the optimal policy mix should be based on a better understanding of the socio-economic and demographic aspects that can affect food security and nutrition.
• Given the alarming trends in public health, and the fact that no instrument has so far managed to reverse these trends, investment in data and evidence on “what works” could reap large benefits.

What did we learn?

• Groups with a low socio-economic status often adopt less healthy food choices. Socio-economic factors associated with suboptimal food consumption include: low income and education levels; single parent households; and the prevalence and accessibility of fast food restaurants.
• Food insecurity is a problem in OECD countries, and Indigenous Peoples are particularly vulnerable. Food banks run by non-governmental organisations provide emergency food assistance sometimes using food that has been recovered as part of countries’ food waste policies, although the sustainability of this approach is debated.
• Coordinated government efforts to address COVID-19 impacts have focussed on providing food assistance to vulnerable groups. Measures mostly involve increasing funding for pre-existing programmes, including for food banks.
• The four-track approach outlined by Giner and Brooks highlights a range of policy options as a way to influence the supply and demand for healthy and unhealthy foods, although these policy options have not been evaluated in terms of their impact on specific socio-economic groups.
• Lack of data hampers efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of policy responses. Data collection is irregular, data sets are not comparable, and there is no clear understanding of the role that socio-economic and demographics characteristics play in determining what food households purchase and consume, nor on its nutritional content. Regular measurement of the prevalence of food insecurity in OECD countries is inadequate.

Key recommendations

• Countries should undertake more in-depth and regular data collection on food purchases and food intake using dietary surveys. These surveys should include questions on the relative food security and socio-economic and demographic determinants of food security to inform policy development that addresses food insecurity, improves nutrition, and encourages healthier food choices from food purchasing through to consumption.
• Sharing best practices in food assistance policies to address food insecurity of vulnerable groups would be valuable.