Poverty is the lack of means to meet basic needs, understood as the availability of food, housing, clothing, 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 all times 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, instead, a broad concept that goes from preoccupation with food to the experience of the feeling of hunger. Following 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 conditions of absolute and relative poverty has increased worldwide, including Italy. In addition to these forms of poverty, the so-called "new forms of poverty" have been added, 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 their material needs, but also their intangible needs (psychological, friendly, relational). These are often unknown, invisible conditions of poverty.  Poverty is also one of the risk factors of Food Insecurity and hidden hunger.

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

The primary objective of the study, which involves the recruitment of at least 636 children and adolescents aged 7-13 years living in urban areas characterized by an average per capita income , is toassess 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.
• To collect data on the availability of basic goods (housing; education; health services) by the family and the child in the last 12 months (starting from the month prior to enrollment in the study).
• 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.

Seven medium-large cities (Ancona, Bari, Brescia, Cagliari, Catania, Rome, Verna) were selected for this purpose. The parishes were chosen as places of aggregation where the parents of the children of the sample population could 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 security situation, and to identify socioeconomic predictors of a food insecurity situation 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 due to fetal structural abnormality, she will be asked to sign the informed consent form and, only then, she will 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 predictive factors 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 with consequent absence or delays in the implementation of contrast interventions.

Starting from the results of previous studies conducted in other countries, the Finescop Project – which has as its study population students from colleges/universities of 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) 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) assess differences in academic achievement, health status, and lifestyle in association with food security status;

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