Tanzania HIV/AIDS and Malaria Indicator Survey ... - Measure DHS

The most common items are agricultural land (73 percent), radio (58 percent), and paraffinlamp (43 percent). More than one-quarter of households (28 percent) possess a mobile phone,although use of non-mobile phones is limited to very few households (less than 1 percent ofhouseholds). Possession of a mobile phone is much higher in urban areas than in rural areas (61 and17 percent, respectively). Forty-one percent of households own a bicycle and about 1 percent own acar or a motorcycle. Only 10 percent of households in Tanzania have at least one member who has abank account. Possession of a bank account is much higher in urban areas (25 percent) than in ruralareas (5 percent).2.7 FOOD SECURITYThe 2007-08 THMIS included severalquestions related to household food security.The questions concerned the number of mealsthe household usually eats each day, the numberof days the household consumed meat in theweek preceding the survey, and how often thehousehold had problems satisfying food needsin the year preceding the survey. Results areshown in Table 2.8.The data show that 55 percent ofhouseholds report that they usually have at leastthree meals per day and 42 percent have twomeals per day. Similar results were observed inthe 2003-04 THIS, in which 54 percent ofhouseholds reported having three meals per dayand 43 percent had two meals per day(TACAIDS, NBS, and ORC Macro, 2005).Meat consumption is not common inTanzania. More than half of households (52 percent)reported that they did not consume meat inthe past week, 21 percent had meat once, 14percent had meat twice, and only 14 percent hadmeat three or more times in the past week. Consumptionof meat differs considerably betweenurban and rural households. Six in ten ruralhouseholds (59 percent) did not consume meatat all in the week preceding the survey, comparedwith 30 percent of urban households.Table 2.8 Household food securityPercentage distribution of households by food security characteristics,according to residence, Tanzania HMIS 2007-08ResidenceFood security characteristic Urban Rural TotalUsual number of meals per day1 meal 1.5 2.4 2.22 meals 22.5 49.0 42.43+ meals 75.8 48.6 55.3Don’t know/missing 0.2 0.0 0.1Total 100.0 100.0 100.0Number of days consumed meatin past week0 30.4 58.5 51.51 22.8 19.7 20.52 20.2 12.2 14.23 13.4 6.3 8.14 6.2 1.6 2.85 2.5 0.7 1.16 1.2 0.1 0.47 3.1 0.6 1.2Don’t know/missing 0.1 0.3 0.3Total 100.0 100.0 100.0Frequency of problems satisfyingfood needs in past yearNever 59.3 44.9 48.5Seldom 18.4 18.1 18.2Sometimes 12.4 18.9 17.3Often 9.6 16.8 15.0Always 0.1 1.1 0.8Don’t know/missing 0.2 0.2 0.2Total 100.0 100.0 100.0Almost half of the population (49 percent)reported never having had problems meetingthe food needs for the family in the yearNumber of households 2,106 6,391 8,497preceding the survey, and 18 percent said that they seldom had such problems. Less than one in fivehouseholds (17 percent) said that they sometimes have a problem meeting food needs and 15 percentsaid that they often have a problem. One percent of households reported always having a problemproviding food for the family.18 | Introduction