Association of Food, Water, and Sanitary Environments in Disadvantaged Communities and Measures of Mental and Physical Health

This paper explores how the lack of nutritious food, clean water, and sanitary living conditions affect the mental and physical health of residents living in disadvantaged communities in Brazil. SF-12 scores which are validated instruments to measure self-reported mental and physical health were compared with residents experiencing varying degrees of insecurities regarding food, water, and sanitary conditions using ANOVA analysis. Results showed the significant associations between food insecurity and both mental and physical health. Correlations between mental health and insanitary living conditions were also observed. There were no significant correlations detected between water insecurity and mental or physical health.