Face-to-face and door-to-door interviews were conducted with household heads after completing informed consent forms. Some general information within each household was collected, such as the head of the household’s age, education level (illiterate, primary, secondary, or high school, diploma, and college), employment status (unemployed, employed, self-employed, pensioner), the number of family members. Their socioeconomic status was calculated considering possession of 9 specific items, including home, personal vehicle, washing machine, LCD TV, dishwasher, refrigerator, handmade rug, laptop, and microwave. Based on the number of items possessed by households, the socioeconomic status was categorized into three groups, low (3 items or less), moderate (4 to 6 items), and high (more than 7 items) [25 ]. In addition, they were asked whether they had chronic diseases (at least one of the non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and cancer), a vulnerable group member in the household (child under 6, adolescent, disabled member, pregnant, handicapped, and elderly), receive financial help from the charity, the portion of income allocated to food purchase, covid-19-induced poverty (including job loss, reduced income, and reduced food purchase), and marital status. The heads of households completed the validated HFIAS (Household Food Insecurity Access Scale) questionnaire to assess food insecurity [26 (link)]. The FAO Indicator Guide was used to score a nine-item HFIAS questionnaire [27 ]. The results were categorized into mild/moderate and severe to make the results more understandable and more appropriate for interventions for policymakers.
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