Physical and mental health toll of food insecurity due to climate change: A pilot exploration of Uganda and South Africa

Governments of 193 countries agree that 17 Sustainable Development Goals should be achieved by 2030. The top three are no poverty, zero hunger and good health and wellbeing. This work aims at testing a theoretical model, which proposes that climate-change as a hazard will affect crop yield, and then both will show impact on food insecurity, which serves as a mediator in this model and in turn will affect people’s mental health, especially if the individuals are in vulnerably or disadvantaged situations. Different sources of data from South Africa and Uganda are used to test the theoretical model with three specific research questions. Firstly, whether the climate change and crop yield models can produce reliable estimates to link with the food insecurity and mental health models. Secondly, whether there are any significant knowledge gaps in each step of the theoretical model and what should be the direction for future exploration. And finally, whether there are any meaningful shared or unique variances between these two countries, and potentially, whether this model can be implemented in the whole African continent or other parts of the world.