Development of emergency food assistance design: a nutritionally balanced, culturally tailored and cost-effective strategy for flood mitigation

ABSTRACT

Emergency food assistance forms an integral component of flood mitigation in Malaysia. A cross-sectional survey investigating emergency food assistance among 202 flood victims was conducted and alternative food assistance plan was developed using linear programming targeting post-disaster food requirement scenarios. From the study, the receipt of food aid was significantly associated with ethnicity, household income, residential area and evacuation into temporary shelters. Linear programming analysis identified nutritionally appropriate food assistance targeting mass feeding, emergency food basket, and immediate food requirement for as low as MYR 6.07 (1.55 USD), MYR 7.14 (1.82 USD), and MYR 8.00 (2.04 USD), respectively. This study provides nutritional guidelines for disaster food assistance policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Emergency food
• evacuation
• flood
• food aid
• Malaysia
• nutrition

Acknowledgments

The authors also acknowledge the financial support provided by the Kuok Foundation and Malayan Sugar Manufacturing (MSM) Fellowship.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of Malaysia through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) [203/PTEKIND/6171178]; and Universiti Sains Malaysia Bridging Grant Scheme [304/PTEKIND/6316031].