[Poverty profile regarding households participating in a food assistance program].

Objective: This study was aimed at establishing subgroups having specific socioeconomic characteristics by using latent class analysis as a method for segmenting target population members of the MANA-ICBF supplementary food program in the Antioquia department of Colombia and determine their differences regarding poverty and health conditions in efficiently addressing pertinent resources, programs and policies.
Methods: The target population consisted of 200,000 children and their households involved in the MANA food assistance program; a representative sample by region was used. Latent class analysis was used, as were the expectation-maximization and Newton Raphson algorithms for identifying the appropriate number of classes.
Results: The final model classified the households into four clusters or classes, differing according to well-defined socio-demographic conditions affecting children's health.
Conclusions: Some homes had a greater depth of poverty, therefore lowering the families' quality of life and affecting the health of the children in this age group.