Dietary Strategies as Mediators of Food Security and Nutritional Status During Severe Drought Among Daasanach Pastoralists in Northern Kenya, 2019-2024

open_access
Open Access
Author:
Meriwether, Natalie
Area of Honors:
Biobehavioral Health
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Asher Yoel Rosinger, Thesis Supervisor
Danielle Rhubart, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Food Insecurity
Nutritional Status
Climate Change
Environmental Health
Coping Strategies
Kenya
Drought
Severe Climatic Events
Diet
Nutrition
Pastoralism
Subsistence
Undernutrition
Abstract:
Extreme climatic events have devastating effects on nutritional status, yet little is known about how different subsistence strategies mediate their effects. The historic 2020-2023 Greater Horn of Africa Drought led to widespread food insecurity and undernutrition across eastern Africa. We sought to understand how diverse dietary strategies were associated with undernutrition and food insecurity among Daasanach pastoralists using data from the Daasanach Human Biology Project, collected from June 2019 (pre-drought) to 2022 and 2023 (peak and end of drought) to July 2024 (a year post-drought). Anthropometric data for adults ≥ 18 years excluding pregnant women (n = 959, N = 486) indicated that most adults were underweight, with an average BMI range from 17.9-18.3 for men and 18.0-18.5 for women across years. Subsistence dietary strategies of market food purchases and fish, meat, and milk consumption showed differing usage trends, with the highest fish and milk consumption in 2024, while reliance on market purchases was highest and meat consumption was lowest in 2022. We estimated panel random effects linear regression models to analyze the impact of these dietary subsistence strategies on BMI, adiposity via sum of four skinfolds (SUM4), and food insecurity (HFIAS) controlling for age and year fixed effects and stratifying by sex. Higher meat consumption was associated with slightly higher BMI for men (B=0.10; p<0.05). Fish was associated with higher BMI for men (B=0.07; p<0.05), lower BMI for women (B=-0.11; p<0.01), and lower food insecurity scores for women (B=-0.22; p<0.05). Milk consumption and market purchases were not associated with indicators of undernutrition or food insecurity. This highlights the importance of traditional and emergent subsistence strategies for nutritional stability among pastoralists.