Abstract

The purposes of this study were to describe the characteristics of food-insecure women residing in Northeastern and Southwestern Ontario and to examine the differences between these women in terms of their perceptions of their general and mental health, worries about running out of food, affordability of balanced meals, and frequency of skipping or cutting meals. Furthermore, the study aimed to identify the factors and/or circumstances associated with these women’s general and mental health perceptions. We conducted a secondary analysis of quantitative data extracted from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) for 2014. The sample for this study consisted of 408 food-insecure women: 210 (51.5%) from Northeastern Ontario and 198 (48.5%) from Southwestern Ontario. The comparative analysis showed that there were no differences in health perceptions among food-insecure women residing in Northeastern versus Southwestern Ontario. Furthermore, the correlation analysis showed that there were significant correlations between household size, employment, worries about running out of food, affordability of balanced meals, frequency of cut or skipped meals, and health perceptions of food-insecure women. Overall, the study findings revealed that various factors affect the health perceptions of food-insecure women in Northeastern and Southwestern Ontario. These factors could potentially be tied to geographical locations and resource constraints within the selected communities; further research should be conducted with a focus on these variables.