BMC Nutr. 2025 Apr 21;11(1):82. doi: 10.1186/s40795-025-01068-4.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Communities afflicted by armed conflict are characterized by pervasive malnutrition and widespread hunger. For nearly two years, there has been an unbroken conflict in Tigray. However, little is understood about the coping mechanisms people used in reaction to a lack of food and cash. This study evaluated the coping mechanisms used by urban residents of Mekelle City in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.
METHODOLOGY: A community-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among 315 randomly selected households in Mekelle City. Data were collected from May to June 2022 using a pre-tested structured questionnaire and entered, cleaned, coded, and analyzed using Stata version 14. We used descriptive statistics to describe the mean, frequency distribution, and percentages. The t-test was used to analyze the consumption-based coping strategy index.
RESULTS: The current analysis indicates that 272 households, or 87%, experienced food shortages. To cope with this situation, 101 households (32.6%) reduced the size of their meals. Additionally, 85 households (27.3%) opted to lower the quality of their meals or substituted less preferred dishes. Furthermore, approximately 72 households (23.2%) skipped meals as a strategy to manage food scarcity. The mean reduced coping strategy index (rCSI) for households that skipped meals is 181.84 (SD: 112.5), whereas it is 38.6 for those that did not skip meals (p < 0.01). For households that reduced the food content, the mean rCSI is 152.4, compared to 51.12 for those who did not reduce food content (p < 0.01).
CONCLUSION: The study revealed that the communities affected by the war faced a tough struggle due to the food crisis. The study highlights the food crisis in war-affected communities, highlighting coping mechanisms like reducing meal quantity and quality and eating less desirable foods. Thus, targeted food ration distributions and blanket supplemental feeding programs should be in place through humanitarian agents to reduce acute malnutrition and mortality, and enable recovery.
PMID:40259413 | DOI:10.1186/s40795-025-01068-4
