Does household food biodiversity protect adults against malnutrition and favour the resilience of Shawi Indigenous households to climate change related events?

Background: Undernutrition is a major consequence of climate change. Biodiversity in the Peruvian Amazon represents an opportunity to promote health and increase climate change resilience of its inhabitants by providing a nutritionally adequate diet and food resources to respond to increasingly frequent flooding. However, literature investigating food biodiversity impacts on health outcomes is limited. Approach: I will assess the association between food biodiversity and anemia (i.e. low iron status) with Indigenous Shawi adults living in the Peruvian Amazon who have recently experienced extreme flooding. In addition, a participatory study will investigate whether biodiversity has promoted food resilience of Shawi participants in response to extreme flooding over the past five years. Expected impact: This study will improve understanding of how biodiversity can promote nutrition and climate change resilience in Indigenous populations. Furthermore, results relating to seasonality of FBD and anemia may have implications for nutrition and climate change policy and programing.