A socio-environmental analysis methodology for child malnutrition in community kitchens in high socioeconomic vulnerability areas of Argentina

Background: Malnutrition, defined as an imbalance in macro- and micronutrient intake, mainly affects children and adolescents. In Argentina, both underweight and overweight are prevalent. Socioeconomic and environmental factors, including food environments, play a crucial role in the incidence of this problem in vulnerable communities. The aim was to analyze the relationship between community food environments and malnutrition in children and adolescents aged 0 to 18 years in community kitchens in Patagonia, NEA and NOA of the Argentine territory in the year 2021. Materials and methods: Correlational ecological study. A non-probabilistic sample was used to select 449 community kitchens in Patagonia, NEA and NOA. The environmental and socioeconomic characteristics of the community kitchens were extracted from open data sources and satellite images. Thematic mapping, summary measures and Poisson regressions were performed to examine the relationship between the prevalence of malnutrition and socioeconomic and environmental variables (p<0.05).Results: The NOA region has the highest concentration of community kitchens (n=225), with a high prevalence of low height in Salta (10.78%) and low weight in Formosa (6.46%). In socioeconomic terms, the NEA presents the highest marginality (51.82%) and scarcity of drinking water (22.96%). In Patagonia, critical (41.3%) and high (28.26%) levels of food insecurity predominate, while in the NEA the risks are lower, with a predominance of low (28.65%) and very low (25.84%) risks. Conclusion: Geostatistical tools are novel for the study of CAE, facilitating a complete vision of the environment to address the various problems related to food.