Poverty is the lack of means to meet basic needs, understood as the availability of food, shelter, clothing, and essential services for community life. With reference to the availability of food, we speak of food security at the individual, family, national, regional and global levels, only if all people have, at every moment of their lives, physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life Food Insecurity) is, on the other hand, a broad concept ranging from preoccupation with food to the experience of feeling hungry. As a result of the economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, rising inflation and the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the number of people and families in absolute and relative poverty has increased worldwide, including Italy. To these forms of poverty have been added the so-called "new forms of poverty", i.e. the conditions in which a person or a family lives, which - although not part of the traditional (cultural, geographical) places of poverty - is no longer able to satisfy not only its material needs, but also its immaterial needs (psychological, friendly, relational). These are conditions of poverty that are often unknown, invisible.  Poverty is also one of the risk factors of Food Insecurity and hidden hunger.

Food Insecurity is a problem that affects not only low-income but also middle-income populations. Since the economic crisis, originating from the Covid-19 pandemic and rising inflation, has also severely affected this last segment of the population, we want to investigate access to food for children and adolescents living in families in possible conditions of "new" and "invisible" poverty.

The primary objective of the study, which involves recruiting at least 636 children and adolescents aged 7-13 years living in urban areas with a median per capita income , is toinvestigate the prevalence of their access to food and health status and how the post-pandemic economic and energy crisis has affected them in the last 12 months. Secondary objectives include:

• Identify possible hidden poverty.
• Collect data on the availability of primary goods (housing; education; health services) by the family and child in the past 12 months (starting with the month prior to study enrollment).
• To study the possible correlation between household income and access to food and other basic goods (housing; education; health services) by the family and the child.
•  To study the possible correlation between access to food and children's health status, as reported by parents.

For this purpose, seven medium-large cities (Ancona, Bari, Brescia, Cagliari, Catania, Rome, Verna) were selected. Parishes have been chosen as places of aggregation where the parents of the children of the sample population can be reached.

Food insecurity is a real problem not only in developing countries, but also in industrialized countries. This condition has been associated with several negative outcomes in a person's life, particularly in pregnant women who are considered part of the vulnerable population.

The study aims to examine whether pregnant and food-insecure women during the last 12 months of enrollment have a higher risk of fetal structural abnormalities than pregnant women in a food-safe situation, and to identify socioeconomic predictors of food insecurity among pregnant women. After diagnosis of structural abnormality in the fetus detected through ultrasound examination, the woman will be invited to participate in the study. In the case of a positive response for fetal structural abnormality, you will be asked to sign the informed consent form and, only then, will you be administered a dedicated questionnaire. On the same day, in the same hospital, another woman of the same age and gestational period, who has a negative ultrasound examination for fetal structural abnormality, will be asked to participate in the study, which will serve as a control. The possibility of identifying socioeconomic predictors could allow the screening of women at risk, allowing timely intervention to prevent negative outcomes associated with food insecurity in pregnant women.

Although university students are a population at high risk of food insecurity, the issue has received little attention, especially in European countries, resulting in the absence or delay in the implementation of law enforcement measures.

Starting from the results of previous studies conducted in other countries, the Finescop Project – which has as its study population students from colleges/universities from 17 universities in 12 European countries (Iceland, Norway, Finland, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey) – has the following objectives of the study are:

(i) to identify and describe the prevalence of food insecurity among students of European colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic;

(ii) describe the possible demographic, socioeconomic, migratory and educational differences associated with a state of food insecurity;  

(iii) to assess differences in academic achievement, health status, and lifestyle in association with food security status;

(iv)  to examine the differences between the pre-pandemic period and the COVID-19 pandemic period in terms of academic achievement, health, and lifestyles, based on the demographic, socioeconomic, migratory and educational characteristics and food security status of students from European colleges and universities participating in this project. From the results obtained, it will be possible to deduce indications for the development of dedicated public policies.