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The food (in)security and mental health nexus in high-risk immigrant populations in middle- and high-income countries: A scoping review

2025· review· en· W4410398782 on OpenAlexafffund
Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Keji Mori, Binita Jirel, Destiny Otoadese

Bibliographic record

VenueSocial Science & Medicine · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldHealth Professions
TopicFood Security and Health in Diverse Populations
Canadian institutionsUniversity of Alberta
FundersCanada First Research Excellence Fund
KeywordsNexus (standard)ImmigrationLow and middle income countriesMental healthFood securityHigh income countriesDemographic economicsEconomic growthSociologyGerontologyEnvironmental healthDevelopment economicsDeveloping countryMedicinePolitical scienceEconomicsGeographyPsychiatryAgriculture

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Pre- and post-migration experiences predispose high-risk immigrants and refugees to elevated risk of food insecurity and negative mental health status. With a significant increase in the occurrence of these challenges in high-risk immigrant populations and the evidence for a syndemic interaction, the need for reasonable efforts and evidence-based interventions to effectively address food insecurity and mental health issues. Such studies could focus on exploring the reinforcing connections between food insecurity and mental health trends. As an initial step to filling in this knowledge gap, we conducted a review of existing literature to explore the commonalities in food security and mental health trends in studies of high-risk immigrants. A systematic search in four major databases (MEDLINE-OVID, CINAHL, Academic Plus, and PubMed) identified 22 relevant articles. A synthesis of these articles identified different subgroups of high-risk immigrants including pregnant women, refugee parents, women immigrants and newcomer youth that experience increased risk of mental health and food insecurity challenges, which are associated with the pre- and post-migration contexts. The experiences of political, social and other environmental violence in countries of origin are traumatic experiences embodied by most high-risk immigrants. On arrival in destination countries, immigrants experience systemic and social barriers that also influence their mental health and food security status. However, access to culturally familiar foods is associated with improved health and wellbeing. Among high-risk immigrants, food, particularly culturally familiar foods are viewed as a symbolic vehicle and a representation of home. When culturally familiar foods are accessible, there is improved mental health status reflected in the ability of immigrants to share their cultures and identity while rebuilding their social networks and enhancing a sense of belonging. Efforts to effectively address food insecurity and mental health challenge in high-risk immigrants require a deep appreciation and understanding of the place and community-based factors and the available resources relevant to the unique needs and experiences of the high-risk immigrant populations.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.002
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.008
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Systematic review · Consensus signal: Systematic review
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.018
Threshold uncertainty score0.036

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0020.008
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0030.003
Bibliometrics0.0040.006
Science and technology studies0.0000.001
Scholarly communication0.0030.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0020.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0040.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.169
GPT teacher head0.507
Teacher spread0.337 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSystematic review
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractno

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