Food Insecurity and Dietary Diversity among Disabled Population in Rural Areas of Bamyan- Afghanistan

Food insecurity is global challenge which developing countries are more affected. All members of the societies are at risk, but people with disabilities are more likely at risk of food insecurity. This study aims to measure the dietary diversity among people with physical disabilities in the rural communities of Afghanistan. For the measurement of dietary diversity, Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) was used to measure the existence of 14 standard food groups in diet of the respondents. Snowball sampling technique was applied in this research and total number of sample size was (n=200). Three districts of Bamyan province (Cnter, Yakawlang and Panjab) were selected for primary data collection. In the sampling frame only physical disabled people were included and the other types of disabled population were excluded. This research found that the HDDS indicator of 94.5% of people were between (0-5). This range is very low and low dietary diversity score. This indicates a very low score for the disabled population who had partial access to the cereals, milk and dairy products, tubers (potato) and legumes. A comprehensive study is recommended to include different types of disabilities and analyze numerous attributes of disabled individual.