HCP discussion paper, no. 12 : compounding vulnerability : a model of urban household food security

This discussion paper proposes a model to help explain the relationship between access to urban infrastructure systems and household vulnerability to food insecurity. Food access in cities is primarily achieved through food purchases, where households convert assets into food at retail locations. When a household falls into food insecurity through trading household assets for resources, it is often trapped by a host of resource deprivations that have occurred over time. In this manner, the process compounds the vulnerability of a household to food insecurity. At the level of the individual household, vulnerability is defined in part by the ability to access essential resources and services.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC