Effectiveness of food-nutritional interventions in immigrants: Perspectives from existing evidence

Abstract

The World Health Organization has focused on the impact of the migration process on people’s health due to its considerable increase worldwide during the last decades. In this context, food is a central component for developing and maintaining a good state of health; however, the evidence is scarce. This research aims to analyze the evidence on food-nutrition interventions in the immigrant population, considering their characteristics and effectiveness. The present study corresponds to a narrative review. The inclusion criteria considered were that they should be interventions in the area of food and nutrition, have an experimental or quasi-experimental design, and have a comparison group to evaluate changes (pre-post intervention measurements or presence of a control group). The findings suggest that there are transversal characteristics in the interventions that reported positive effects; among them, the quantity and frequency of the sessions, the cultural adaptation of the content according to the idiosyncrasy of the territory of origin of the migrants, and the age of the target group to intervene in order to achieve significant learning. It is of vital importance to generate evidence in the Latin American context that allows for the contextualization of the health status of the migrant population and lays the foundation for future food and nutrition interventions