Socioeconomic Differences in the Cost, Availability and Quality of Healthy Food in Sydney

HBS108: Sourcing, Identifying and Evaluating
Evidence Using Health Information and Data.
Name
ID
Institution
Professor
Date
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Task A:
Q.[1(i)] According to National Health and Medical Research Council [NHMRC]
(2013), the construct was measured following the criteria listed below:
 A balanced diet that includes fruit and vegetables (NHMRC 2013).
 Minimum number of 2 servers of fruit and 6 serves for vegetables, but
dependent of age and sex (NHMRC 2013).
 To measure how sufficient the consumption is, a daily report of a
respondent is checked on the basis of either meeting or exceeding the
recommendations (NHMRC 2013).
(ii)
In the analysis carried out by Australian Bureau of statistics [ABS]
(2017 -18), results show that only half of the adult Australians met the
guidelines of 2 or more fruit serves. However, for the 5-6 vegetable serves
per day, the proportion was quite low at only 7.5% (ABS 2017-18). Thus, the
likelihood is still low.
Observing the difference between men and men, the likelihood chance
for meeting it is higher for the women than men. A difference of 9.2% (ABS
2017-18) more men than women is accounted for.

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(iii)
At a 51.8%, the first quintile in the index of Relative Socio-economic
Disadvantage had the highest proportion of persons with inadequate fruit
consumption. Still the first quintile recorded a 94.0% proportion of
inadequate vegetable consumption.
(iv)
The first quintile depicts 51.8% of inadequate fruit consumption translating
to a greater advantage in general (ABS 2017-18). For the daily vegetable
consumption, there is a higher advantage of 94.0% for the first quintile.
However, the fifth quintile had a 45% index of inadequate fruit consumption
hence greater disadvantage. Looking at the consumption of vegetables, it is
still the fifth quintile that records a higher disadvantage index. This has been
shown well in Table 1 in the appendix section.
Q.[2(i)]
 At individual level, factors that interplay in one’s eating behaviors
include: -
 Individuals preference,
 Cultural beliefs,
 Knowledge,
 Skills,

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 Other perceived barriers just to mention a few (VicHealth 2018,
p.7).
 Based on Australian Health Survey (ABS 2014), the number of actual
serves for males aged 19-50years is at 6.4, whereas the recommended
serves should be nil. Similar to women aged 19-50 years, there is an
actual intake of 4.2 serves while the recommended amount should also
be zero.
(ii) Food choice in the disadvantage background is influenced by the
following factors.
 A perception of high cost of nutrient-rich foods (Williams et al. 2012).
 Poor availability
 Low personal food skills
 Shallow knowledge of food and nutrition
 Difficulty in accessing healthy food choices
Q.[3(i)]
 About 95% of the adult population ("4364.0.55.012 - Australian Health
Survey: Consumption of Food Groups from the Australian Dietary
Guidelines, 2011-12" 2019; Hendrie et al. 2019, p. 3).
 A sample of 1068 participants was acquired for the study.
(ii) The outcome was: -