Protocol - Food Insecurity
Description
The six-item standard measure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service is a short interviewer-administered questionnaire, modeled using information from the Community Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and American Community Survey.
Specific Instructions
None
Protocol
Six-Item Standard Measure from USDA Economic Research Service
1. I'm going to read you two statements that people have made about their food situation. Please tell me whether the statement was OFTEN, SOMETIMES, or NEVER true for (you/you and the other members of your household) in the last 12 months.
The first statement is, "The food that (I/we) bought just didn't last, and (I/we) didn't have money to get more." Was that often, sometimes, or never true for (you/your household) in the last 12 months?
1[ ]Often true
2[ ]Sometimes true
3[ ]Never true
[ ] Don't know
[ ] Refused
2. "(I/we) couldn't afford to eat balanced meals." Was that often, sometimes, or never true for (you/your household) in the last 12 months?
1[ ]Often true
2[ ]Sometimes true
3[ ]Never true
[ ] Don’t know
[ ] Refused
3. In the last 12 months, since (date 12 months ago) did (you/you or other adults in your household) ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there wasn't enough money for food?
1[ ]Yes
2[ ]No (GO TO 5)
[ ] Don’t know (GO TO 5)
[ ] Refused (GO TO 5)
Optional Screener: If any of the first 3 questions are answered affirmatively (i.e., if either Q1 or Q2 are "often true" or "sometimes true" or Q3 is "yes"), proceed to the next question. Otherwise, skip to end.
3a. [Ask only if Q3 = YES] How often did this happen—almost every month, some months but not every month, or in only 1 or 2 months?
1[ ]Almost every month
2[ ]Some months but not every month
3[ ]Only 1 or 2 months
[ ] Don’t know
[ ] Refused
4. In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn't enough money to buy food?
1[ ]Yes
2[ ]No
[ ] Don’t know
[ ] Refused
5. In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry but didn't eat because you couldn't afford enough food?
1[ ]Yes
2[ ]No
[ ] Don’t know
[ ] Refused
END
It may be noted that this set of six items constitutes the full set of adult items within the intermediate range of severity captured by the full scale derived from the core module. This particular set has been shown to be the strongest available 6-item set, across households both with and without children, for achieving the most accurate. Guide to Measuring Household Food Security -- 200061TRANSITION/LEADER.
If the placement of items in your survey makes the transitional or introductory sentence unnecessary, you may add the word “Now” to the beginning of question 1: “Now I’m going to read you...."
FILL INSTRUCTIONS.
Select the appropriate fill from parenthetical choices depending on the number of persons and number of adults in the household. If this information is unknown, or very few single-adult households are included in your sample, the plural forms may be used throughout.
USING AN INTERNAL SCREENER.
The 6-item set can be used with an optional internal screener, comparable to the first-level internal screen used in the 18-item core module. Testing has shown that a screen placed after the first three questions in the 6-item sequence causes a negligible misclassification of food-insecure households (false negative classifications) The procedure results in a 0.2 percent reduction in the number of households identified as food insecure without hunger and a zero loss of households identified as food insecure with hunger - i.e., this screen has no effect on the power of the scale to classify households with hunger.
CODING THE DATA FOR SCALING.
- Responses of “often” or “sometimes” on questions 1 and 2, and “yes” on 3, 4, and 5 are coded as affirmative (yes).
- Responses of “almost every month” and “some months but not every month” on 3a are coded as affirmative (yes).
- The sum of affirmative responses to the six questions in the module is the household’s raw score on the scale.
MISSING VALUES. Missing values as the result of item nonresponse ("Don’t know" or Refused) may be handled the same way in scoring the standard 6-item data sets as in scoring the full core-module data (Guide to Measuring Household Food Security, Chapter 3 "Imputing Missing Values for Households with Incomplete Responses").
Food security status is assigned as follows:
- Raw score 0-1—High or marginal food security (raw score 1 may be considered marginal food security, but a large proportion of households that would be measured as having marginal food security using the household or adult scale will have raw score zero on the six-item scale)
- Raw score 2-4—Low food security
- Raw score 5-6—Very low food security
For some reporting purposes, the food security status of households with raw score 0-1 is described as food secure and the two categories “low food security” and “very low food security” in combination are referred to as food insecure.
For statistical procedures that require an interval-level measure, the following scale scores, based on the Rasch measurement model may be used:
Number of affirmatives | Scale score |
0 | NA |
1 | 2.86 |
2 | 4.19 |
3 | 5.27 |
4 | 6.30 |
5 | 7.54 |
6 (evaluated at 5.5) | 8.48 |
However, no interval-level score is defined for households that affirm no items. (They are food secure, but the extent to which their food security differs from households that affirm one item is not known.)
Availability
Personnel and Training Required
The interviewer must be trained to conduct personal interviews with individuals from the general population. The interviewer must be trained and found to be competent (i.e., tested by an expert) at the completion of personal interviews. The interviewer should be trained to prompt respondents further if a “don’t know” response is provided.
In general, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that any local group planning a food security survey seek to work cooperatively with university or other resource staff experienced in sample-survey work. Many sampling methods are available that are feasible and that can yield meaningful results, but expertise is needed to design these methods into a planned survey.
Equipment Needs
The PhenX Working Group acknowledges that these questions can be administered in a computerized or noncomputerized format (i.e., paper-and-pencil instrument). Computer software is necessary to develop computer-assisted instruments. The interviewer will require a laptop computer or handheld computer to administer a computer-assisted questionnaire.
Requirements
Requirement Category | Required |
---|---|
Major equipment | No |
Specialized training | No |
Specialized requirements for biospecimen collection | No |
Average time of greater than 15 minutes in an unaffected individual | No |
Mode of Administration
Interviewer-administered questionnaire
Lifestage
Adult
Participants
Adult
Selection Rationale
The six-item standard measure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service is a validated, well-established measure of food insecurity that is easy to administer and score.
Language
Chinese, English, Spanish
Standards
Standard | Name | ID | Source |
---|
Derived Variables
None
Process and Review
Not applicable
Protocol Name from Source
U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module: Six-Item Short Form, Economic Research Service, USDA, 2012
Source
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Economic Research Service. (2012). Six-Item Short Form of the Food Security Survey Module, questions 3, 4, 8, 8a, 9 and 10. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/survey-tools/
General References
Blumberg, S. J., Bialostosky, K., Hamilton, W. L., & Briefel, R. R. (1999). The effectiveness of a shortform of the household food security scale. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1231–1234.
Gundersen, C., & Ziliak, J. P. (2015). Food insecurity and health outcomes. Health Affairs, 34(11), 1830–1839.
Jones, A. D., Ngure, F. M., Pelto, G., & Young, S. L. (2013). What are we assessing when we measure food security? A compendium and review of current metrics. Advances in Nutrition, 4(5), 481–505. PMID: 24038241
Lee, J. S. (2013). Food insecurity and healthcare costs: Research strategies using local, state, and national data sources for older adults. Advances in Nutrition, 4(1), 42–50.
Murthy, V. H. (2016). Food insecurity: A public health issue. Public Health Reports, 131(5), 655–657. PMID: 28123203
National Research Council. (2005). Measuring food insecurity and hunger: Phase 1 report. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Protocol ID
270301
Variables
Export VariablesVariable Name | Variable ID | Variable Description | dbGaP Mapping | |
---|---|---|---|---|
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Afford_Balanced_Meals_Last_12_Months | ||||
PX270301020100 | (I/we) couldn't afford to eat balanced more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Afford_Balanced_Meals_Last_12_Months_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301020200 | (I/we) couldn't afford to eat balanced more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Change_Diet_Frequency | ||||
PX270301030300 | How often did this happen - almost every more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Change_Diet_Frequency_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301030400 | How often did this happen - almost every more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Change_Diet_Last_12_Months | ||||
PX270301030100 | In the last 12 months, since (date 12 months more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Change_Diet_Last_12_Months_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301030200 | In the last 12 months, since (date 12 months more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Eat_Less_Last_12_Months | ||||
PX270301040100 | In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Eat_Less_Last_12_Months_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301040200 | In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Food_Money_Frequency_Past_12_Months | ||||
PX270301010100 | The food that (I/we) bought just didn't more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Food_Money_Frequency_Past_12_Months_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301010200 | The food that (I/we) bought just didn't more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Hungry_Last_12_Months | ||||
PX270301050100 | In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry more | N/A | ||
PX270301_Food_Insecurity_Hungry_Last_12_Months_Enumerated | ||||
PX270301050200 | In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry more | N/A |
Measure Name
Food Insecurity
Release Date
May 11, 2020
Definition
Food insecurity measures the availability, accessibility, and affordability of nutritionally adequate food.
Purpose
Food insecurity can lead to hunger and/or malnutrition.
Keywords
food insecurity, Financial Resource Constraint, food insecurity, Food Security, hunger
Measure Protocols
Protocol ID | Protocol Name |
---|---|
270301 | Food Insecurity |
Publications
Bart, T. A., et al. (2023) Measurement invariance of commonly used psychosis-screening scales in US Spanish- and English-speaking Hispanic participants. Psychological Assessment. 2023 April; 35(4): 300-310. doi: 10.1037/pas0001207
Davidson, J., et al. (2022) From Genes to Geography, from Cells to Community, from Biomolecules to Behaviors: The Importance of Social Determinants of Health. Biomolecules. 2022 December; 12(10): 7. doi: 10.3390/biom12101449
Pomeroy, A., et al. (2022) Protocol for a Longitudinal Study of the Determinants of Metabolic Syndrome Risk in Young Adults. Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. 2022 April; 7(2): 8. doi: 10.1249/tjx.0000000000000197