Socioeconomic Factors Associated With Diet Quality in Pregnancy: A Cross‐Sectional Australian Study

TL;DR

This study finds that pregnant Australian women with lower socioeconomic status tend to have poorer diet quality, highlighting the need for policy changes to address these disparities.

Contribution

The study identifies a social gradient in prenatal diet quality and emphasizes the need for systems-level interventions targeting disadvantaged groups.

Findings

Prenatal diet quality was generally poor, with a mean score of 76.1 out of 130.

Lower socioeconomic status was linked to clinically significant reductions in diet quality.

Perceived social support was not associated with meaningful changes in diet quality.

Abstract

Prenatal diet affects maternal and child health; however, adherence to dietary guidelines in pregnancy is low. This cross‐sectional study aimed to describe overall diet quality and to examine relationships between socioeconomic factors and diet quality in a sample of Australian pregnant women. Participants (n = 1580) completed an online survey and self‐reported usual dietary intake (via a food frequency questionnaire [FFQ]) and socioeconomic factors, including highest educational attainment, income, perception of overall financial situation, residential postcode for area‐level socioeconomic status (SES), stressful life events, and perceived social support. FFQ responses were converted to an overall diet quality score using the Dietary Guidelines Index 2013 (DGI‐13) criteria. Latent class analysis was used to identify groups of stressful life events, and multiple linear regression models examined associations between the socioeconomic factors and DGI‐13 score. Overall, adherence to dietary guidelines and prenatal diet quality were low. The mean DGI‐13 score was 76.1 (SD 13.7) out of a maximum possible score of 130. All socioeconomic factors were significantly associated with DGI‐13 score. For all socioeconomic factors except the perceived social support score, the lowest/most disadvantaged categories and middle/medium categories were associated with clinically important reductions of 5–9 points and 3–6 points, respectively, indicating a social gradient in diet quality. There is a need to improve prenatal diet quality among all women. However, there is an urgent need for systems‐level interventions and policy change that target those with lower SES backgrounds to reduce dietary and health inequities.

In this sample, prenatal diet quality was generally poor.Various socioeconomic factors, including education, income adjusted for household composition and size, perception of financial situation, area‐level socioeconomic status, perceived social support, and latent classes of stressful life events were significantly associated with prenatal diet quality.Perceived social support score was not related to a clinically important change in diet quality. For all other socioeconomic factors, lower/more disadvantaged categories were associated with clinically relevant decreases in diet quality.While there is a need to improve diet quality among all pregnant women, systems‐level interventions and policy change targeting those with lower socioeconomic status are urgently required to reduce dietary inequities.

In this sample, prenatal diet quality was generally poor.

Various socioeconomic factors, including education, income adjusted for household composition and size, perception of financial situation, area‐level socioeconomic status, perceived social support, and latent classes of stressful life events were significantly associated with prenatal diet quality.

Perceived social support score was not related to a clinically important change in diet quality. For all other socioeconomic factors, lower/more disadvantaged categories were associated with clinically relevant decreases in diet quality.

While there is a need to improve diet quality among all pregnant women, systems‐level interventions and policy change targeting those with lower socioeconomic status are urgently required to reduce dietary inequities.

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