ArticleArchives of women's mental health2026
Exploring the relationship between food insecurity and postpartum depression: A scoping review.
Article in Archives of women's mental health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPostpartum depression (PPD) affects a significant proportion of birthing people worldwide, with rising rates in the United States. Food insecurity, a recognized social determinant of health, has been independently associated with adverse maternal and child outcomes. Although individual studies have examined links between food insecurity and PPD, the evidence base is fragmented, with variation in populations studied, measurement tools, and conceptual approaches.
objectiveThis scoping review examined the relationship between food insecurity and postpartum depression (PPD), synthesizing available evidence to inform research, clinical practice, and policy.
methodsGuided by the Arksey and O'Malley framework and the PRISMA-ScR checklist, a systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Scopus, and GreenFILE were searched for peer-reviewed, English-language primary studies.
resultsTwenty studies met inclusion criteria (18 quantitative, 2 qualitative), with six conducted in the United States and 14 in other countries. Nineteen of 20 studies demonstrated an association between food insecurity and PPD. However, diversity in measurement tools and study designs limited comparability. Most studies used symptom-based screening rather than diagnostic criteria, and few applied the validated tools currently recommended by ACOG and USPSTF. While findings consistently indicate food insecurity as a significant correlate of PPD, the directionality of the relationship remains unclear, and existing measures often overlook physical access to food.
conclusionThe evidence indicates a robust association between food insecurity and PPD across diverse populations, though methodological limitations constrain interpretation. Future research should prioritize standardized PPD measures, explore causal and bidirectional pathways, and integrate physical access to food into food insecurity assessment. Clinically, integrating food insecurity screening with PPD screening could strengthen early detection. Policy strategies that reduce economic and geographic barriers to food access may play a critical role in mitigating PPD risk.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41549125What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.