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Acknowledging, measuring and acting on the importance of water for food and nutrition

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Recognizing the importance of experiences with water insecurity in the context of food and nutrition is a powerful way to act on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s call to “take water action for food and be the change” on World Food Day.

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Fig. 1: Adjusted odds ratios (with 95% confidence intervals) of moderate-to-severe food insecurity among those who experienced moderate-to-severe water insecurity (IWISE score ≥12) relative to those who experienced water security or mild water insecurity (IWISE score < 12) in nationally representative samples from 25 countries in the 2020 Gallup World Poll (n = 31,755).
Fig. 2: Issues with water — too much, too little, and poor quality — can shape many of the determinants of maternal and child malnutrition.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the many colleagues and collaborators who have helped to shape the thinking in this piece, including the Water Insecurity Experiences — Latin American and Caribbean (WISE-LAC) network and the Household Water Insecurity Experiences — Research Coordination Network (HWISE-RCN). S.L.Y. acknowledges support for a Visiting Professorship from the Leverhulme Trust Foundation. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of FAO.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology & Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    Sera L. Young & Hilary J. Bethancourt

  2. Division of Statistics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Carlo Cafiero & Sara Viviani

  3. Instituto de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo con Equidad, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico

    Pablo Gaitán-Rossi

  4. Land & Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Sasha Koo-Oshima

  5. International Water Management Institute, Rome, Italy

    Rachael McDonnell

  6. School of Human Nutrition, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez

  7. Food and Nutrition Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Lynnette M. Neufeld

  8. UN-Nutrition Secretariat, Rome, Italy

    Stineke Oenema

  9. School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Rafael Pérez-Escamilla

  10. Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

    Edward A. Frongillo

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  1. Sera L. Young
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  2. Hilary J. Bethancourt
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  3. Carlo Cafiero
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  4. Pablo Gaitán-Rossi
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  5. Sasha Koo-Oshima
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  6. Rachael McDonnell
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  7. Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez
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  8. Lynnette M. Neufeld
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  9. Stineke Oenema
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  10. Rafael Pérez-Escamilla
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  11. Sara Viviani
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  12. Edward A. Frongillo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sera L. Young.

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Young, S.L., Bethancourt, H.J., Cafiero, C. et al. Acknowledging, measuring and acting on the importance of water for food and nutrition. Nat Water 1, 825–828 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00146-w

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