BIO 340 Final Project: Rural Population Structure and Food Production Interact to Shape Global Undernourishment

Ava Ripanti - Environmental Biology '27 Undernourishment remains a major global public health challenge, reflecting the proportion of a population lacking sufficient dietary energy intake. While food availability is central to food security, undernourishment is also shaped by structural and socioeconomic factors such as population distribution and access to resources. Although rural populations are closely tied to agriculture, they often experience higher food insecurity due to limited infrastructure, market access, and healthcare. Prior research emphasizes that broader determinants, particularly inequality and development, are stronger predictors of undernourishment than agricultural output alone, that food insecurity exists in both rural and urban contexts, and that rural populations face persistent nutritional disadvantages. Therefore, thisstudy examines how rural population share and food production jointly influence undernourishment across countries over time. I hypothesize that in areas with higher rural population percentage, there will be higher levels of undernourishment and in areas with higher food production, there will be lower levels of undernourishment. BIO 340 final project