A Compelling Case for Spatial Modelling of Food Insecurity Jem Golden

Many citizens from countries in the industrialised world are now facing food insecurity on a large scale including global food exporting powerhouses Australia and the United States.

Food security is a fundamental human right and essential to our physical, mental and social health and wellbeing. Yet food insecurity, defined as ‘the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways’ is increasing in high income countries.

As well as compromising on the quantity and nutritional quality of food, food insecurity at a household and individual level is often characterised by episodic and/or chronic experiences of stress, anxiety, and social isolation.

The Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) is an interdisciplinary research and consulting organisation at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). ISF has been setting global benchmarks since 1997 in helping governments, organisations, businesses and communities achieve change towards sustainable futures.

In earlier articles posted on LinkedIn I highlighted UTS Nimish Biloria’s work advocating for, and designing ‘empathic city’ solutions. Dr. Biloria is a strong proponent of smart technology data applications such as geo-spatial and spatiotemporal analytics within urban environments but for a ‘human-centric’ end game and with tangible psychological benefits to everyday citizens.

Also, I reported on UTS’ Faculty of Health, Dr. Hamish Robertson and Nick Nicholas who designed a very intuitive, multi-layered data-informed ‘visuospatial’ tool to map out population ageing and modelled epidemiology in Australia. The application allows users to look at existing and future scenarios for chronic diseases by age demographics at a national level, city council level all the way down to city block.

A White Paper produced for Foodbank Australia by The Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney published in November 2021 Food Spatial Modelling of Food Insecurity in Australia uses a similarly complex modelling environment to generate compelling visualisation of trends in food insecurity that is both present and future orientated.

Foodbank Australia is the largest provider of vital foodstuffs to charities around Australia, distributing 241,000 meals a day to 2,600 charities. Individuals and even food supplying agencies can come into and out of the food security space over time. The pandemic is an influencing factor in this dynamic, but food insecurity was already a major factor in the Australian social landscape.

The focus of the modelling in the White Paper was on quantifying “everyday” food insecurity as it is more of a constant and more reliable to predict than food insecurity associated with crisis and disaster events which can have a distorting effect on the general picture of food insecurity due to their unpredictability and episodic nature. This allowed the project to concentrate on key factors such as understanding where demand exists, to what degree, and where and how the current supply caters to that pattern of demand.

Dr. Hamish Robertson led the research team on the White Paper together with UTS-ISF colleagues Brent Jacobs, Federico Davila and Fiona Berry; also James Brown, UTS Professor of Official Statistics.

“Food security services in general tend to have very poor data on who is using their services, and spatial data in particular has been lacking. The agencies are required to report their results to the government but their level of community analysis is limited and that is where our model can be supportive and intuitive in managing the supply and demand more effectively. Peaks and troughs in food demand certainly need to be better managed”, says Dr. Robertson.

Among the core objectives of the White Paper was to identify the key demographic drivers of food insecurity at the small area level and to estimate the number of people who suffer food insecurity over a 12-month period across Australia. The focus of these objectives was to unpack the data to identify patterns in food insecurity and Foodbank distribution patterns that could accommodate the national scale down to the small area level. These objectives shaped the way in which the model was developed and the visualisation format of the modelled outputs.

A key priority for this modelling exercise was to quantify food insecurity across Australia and also to present that information in several visual formats that users could access and engage with to better inform their practice. This process is illustrated showing the scenarios developed for metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney below.

Map Above Created by the Institute for Sustainable Futures: Very Low Food Security by Percentage of Households in Melbourne

Map Above Created by the Institute for Sustainable Futures: Very Low Food Security by Percentage of Households in Sydney

These maps isolate the estimate of very low food security (from general or average food insecurity) to inform and support agency actions. This element is important because one finding of the research was that the existence of a service will generate demand in local areas. In other words, if food delivery agencies establish service provision in an area it will effectively generate local demand. This mapping of very low food security can, therefore, inform where best to locate new services if they are not already available in that area. 

An additional activity undertaken utilising the modelling outputs was segmenting into ten different ‘demand profiles’ or ‘community personas’ since it has been shown that there is no one type of person who might be food insecure. These personas drew on both urban/rural contexts and included for instance, ‘Low Income City Retirees’, ‘Home Leavers’, ‘Battling Families’ and others. These were then leveraged to forecast food insecurity demand for each specific segment of vulnerable people within inner city districts and across the total Australian population.

Above graphic - Segmentation of 'Community personas' experiencing food insecurity in Australia

“Our White Paper aims to inform the broader food security literature and practice base by showing what is possible in terms of data management, analysis and visualisation”, explains Dr. Robertson. “It is important that Food Bank Australia, Meals on Wheels and other agencies can ensure that those most needing food get it in a timely manner and safely access these critical services. That is the positive side, which is quite substantial, but a study of this kind raises social policy issues and we are adding beneficial technology to the mix, it does not by itself examine underlying problem as to how food insecurity can be best addressed”, he concludes.

The intention was, and remains, to refine and develop this modelling approach as new and improved data sets become available and, also, based on input from expert informants. This is, therefore, an ongoing and developmental process and UTS would most definitely welcome the scrutiny and feedback on their food insecurity visualisation model from across the wider global community of ‘empathic experts’.

Sources for Article:

Interview with Dr. Hamish Robertson, Senior Lecturer at University of Technology Sydney

Hamish Linked In Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamish-robertson-738a1946/

Progress in the Spatial Modelling of Food Insecurity in Australia: A Foodbank Australia White Paper Prepared for The Art of More on behalf of Foodbank Australia

Institute for Sustainable Futures

https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/2021-12/Foodbank_white_paper%20final.pdf

Food Insecurity Prevalence, Severity and Determinants in Australian Households during the COVID-19 Pandemic from the Perspective of Women

By Sue Kleve et al

Published in Nutrients 2021, 13, 4262. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13124262