Food insecurity is a significant public health problem around the world with approximately a quarter of the world’s population experiencing either moderate or severe food insecurity.
Achieving food security refers to having the availability and physical, social and financial access, to sufficient, safe, culturally appropriate and nutritionally adequate food. While a majority of the people experiencing food insecurity are in lower to middle income countries, the prevalence in higher income countries is still significant due to the adverse affects food insecurity has on both physical and mental health.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light further weaknesses in the food system, cost of living and job security and has seen an increase in people experiencing food insecurity. With changing food access issues due to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to find new ways to explore the issue of food security on a large scale, gather real time information and find new ways to support and enhance advocacy efforts in the area. Social media presents a potential new way of accessing people’s perspectives around food insecurity and has been largely unexplored.
Food security communication and advocacy on social media will be explored in a multidisciplinary project bringing together experts from nutrition, communications, social marketing and computer science from Monash University and RMIT University. This PhD project aims to explore the issue of food security through discovery research utilising novel knowledge acquisition methods, in order to inform future decision making around advocacy, interventions or policy efforts to help address food insecurity. This project will involve using computer science techniques to be able to explore what is being said on social media around food security, how it is being communicated and who are the key influencers discussing food security. One outcome of this PhD project is to create future directions or guidelines on health communications or advocacy efforts that could utilise social media and engage different people in the system and support current efforts around food security.
