Determinants of Food Access of Old People in Dire Dawa City, Ethiopia: An Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis

Abstract

Although Ethiopia is a young country with 46 per cent of the population under the age of 14, over five per cent of the 81 million Ethiopians are aged 60 years or more. This proportion of older persons is anticipated to nearly double to nine per cent by 2050. There are several factors that could hinder old people access to food such as income, health status, household size, disability and others (HAIE, 2011). This objective of this study was to assess the old people access to food and its determinants in Dire Dawa city. Total samples of 947 old people were taken by using cluster sampling over proportional allocation to each kebele. Quantitative and qualitative data has been collected from aged persons in Dawit Aid for Aged persons Association, Asegedech Association and other appropriate enumeration areas. The descriptive analysis resulted that 72.76% were members of the associations. Most (74.3%) members of the organization have medium and above food access. Additionally their life have been improved in terms of obtaining medical, clothing and counseling service after they joined the organizations. The ordinal logistic regression identified income source, occupation, owning a house and type of membership organization as determinants of daily food access for the elderly.