IFPRI Gender Methods Seminar presented by Jessica Ham, Women's Empowerment in Agricultural Index (WEAI) PhD fellow. Screencast available here: http://bit.ly/1w6NniW Abstract: My dissertation research investigates the effectiveness of coping with food insecurity in a subsistence society in northern Ghana that is transitioning to a peri-urban environment. Research shows that food insecurity predicts poor mental health (Cole and Tembo 2011; Hadley and Patil 2008; Lund et al. 2010; Nanama and Frongillo 2012). My project is equally concerned with the reverse prediction, whether poor mental health leads to reduced capacity to assure access to food. Where food accessibility depends upon managing diverse and labor-intensive economic activities meant to procure social and material needs, poor mental health may perpetuate conditions of vulnerability. I propose that this pathway is mediated by physiological stress responses as measured through blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol. In turn, I propose that poor mental health, supplemented by elevated cortisol profiles and blood pressure may result in deleterious behavioral responses seen in household socio-economic decision-making processes. I therefore investigate how poor mental health may influence long-term adaptations. Screencast available here: http://bit.ly/1w6NniW Bio: Jessica Ham is a bio-cultural anthropologist and PhD candidate at the University of Georgia who was selected in 2012 to receive a Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture (WEAI) Ph.D.dissertation research fellowship. As a bio-cultural anthropologist, she seeks to understand how our social and economic worlds influence human health and biology. Specifically, her dissertation research looks at how food insecurity influences mental health and how poor mental health may contribute to physiological processes of the stress response system that can impair socio-economic productivity. Jessica holds an MA in the Anthropology of Development from the University of Sussex (2007). Prior to pursuing a doctorate degree, she worked for three years in the non-profit world in advocacy for equitable health care access.

1. J E S S I C A H A M ,
U N I V E R S I T Y O F
G E O R G I A
Worried sick: investigating the linkages
among food insecurity, mental health, and
productivity in the Ghanaian savannah

2. Does poor mental
health affect human
biology and health?
If so, do these effects
feed back into food
insecurity?

3. Upper West Ghana
Why food insecurity, why
here?
 33% of the population
in the north is food
insecure
 6% of the population in
the south is food
insecure
 42% of the Wa West
district is food insecure
 2009; 2012 WFP
Setting the scene

4. Upper West
Livelihoods
Women: charcoal, shea
nuts, firewood, beer
brewing, trading
Men: day labor (farm
and market), security
guard
Shea fruit Charcoal
Sorghum Maize

5. Community 1

6. Community 2

7. Household Food Insecurity Access Survey
 8 Questions (1 month recall)
Adapted from the Food and
Nutritional Assistance—FANTA
survey
 3 domains
 Perception of food accessibility
 Perception of quantity of food
consumed
 Perception of quality of food
consumed
 Frequency of occurrence
 Never
 Rarely (1-2x)
 Sometimes (3-10x)
 Often (>10x)

8. Food
Insecurity
March
Mean Score 1: 4.4
Mean Score 2: 13.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
FI 1 FI 2 FI 3 FI 4 FI 5 FI 6 FI 7 FI 8
PercentPositiveResponse
Community 1
Community 2

9. Food
Insecurity July
Mean Score 1: 3.4
Mean Score 2: 6.7
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
FI 1 FI 2 FI 3 FI 4 FI 5 FI 6 FI 7 FI 8
Community 1
Community 2

10. Food
Insecurity
October
Mean Score 1: 0.79
Mean Score 2: 2.4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
FI 1 FI 2 FI 3 FI 4 FI 5 FI 6 FI 7 FI Q8
Community 1
Community 2

11. Mean Food Insecurity Scores
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
March July October
Community 1
Community 2

12. Mental Health Survey
 14 symptoms
5 psychological (too much thinking)
8 somatic (heart pounding)
2 cognitive (easily forgetting)
 Frequency of occurrence
Never
Rarely (1-2x)
Sometimes (3-10x)
Often (>10x)

13. Mental Health
March
Mean Score 1: 10.5
Mean Score 2: 14.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
MH1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
PercentPositiveResponse
Community 1
Community 2

14. Mental Health
July
Mean Score 1: 7.0
Mean Score 2: 10.5
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
MH1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Community 1
Community 2

15. Mental Health
October
Mean Score 1: 4.9
Mean Score 2: 8.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
MH1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Community 1
Community 2

16. Mean Mental Health Scores
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
March July October
Community 1
Community 2

17. What is going on with the food insecurity and
mental health scores?
 “In anthropological terms,
people are at one and the
same time embedding their
decisions in both short and
long term frameworks, in
which present consumption
or expenditure decisions
express, confirm, or create a
potential claim over the
longer term. The optimal
solution meets both sets of
expectations and predictions”
(Guyer 1997)

18. Worries

19. Integrating the
WEAI

20. Biological Outcomes: blood pressure and cortisol


21. 0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
March July October
Community 1
Community 2
 “Can’t work like
you want to”
Worry sickness

22. Measuring Productivity
 Agricultural yields for 2013
and 2014
 15 weeks of labor
allocation surveys
 Iterated structured
interviews on income
earned and income
allocated
 Illness, days of missed
work