Table 1 Measures of household food security
From: Household food security in the agropastoral communities of rural southern Kyrgyzstan
Indicator | Type | Timeline | Description | Strength | Weakness | Sample question | Seminal author(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) | Consumptive | 24 h | This food security indicator is a quick snapshot of a household’s quality of diet. It allows for precise dietary nutrient composition and involves a short recall period | High internal validity; provides detailed breakdown of food types consumed | Short time period is only a snapshot; sensitive to seasonal and market variation | Now I would like to ask you about the types of foods that you or anyone else in your household ate yesterday during the day and night • Any eggs? | [60] |
Food Consumption Score (FCS) | Consumptive | 7 days | Food consumption score is a consumptive indicator of food security that extends the HDDS into a longer temporal period. It allows for consumptive thresholds and micronutrient dietary contributions to be examined | Experiential indicator; easy to launch in the field | Reliability risk with precise food groups; limited timescale | How many days for the last 7 days did your family consume these food items? • Any fruits? | [52] |
Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) | Experiential | 30 days | This is a social indicator of food insecurity that is easily broken down into 3 categories. It captures activities and anxiety for when food is low | Examines acute food insecurity; experiential; able to be closely examined in categories | Limited scope; cultural relevance | During the past 30 days, have there been times when your family had to do the following in order to get money or food? • Decrease expenditures for healthcare | [54] |
Reduced Coping Strategy Index (rCSI) | Experiential | 7 days | This is a quickly deployed and elegantly simplistic experiential indicator of food insecurity when households are strained | Experiential indicator; broad assessment of household status | Pride causing limited internal validity; inexact counting of strategies with no severity variation within a given selection | In the past week, if food was low, how often did you use the following options: • Rely on less preferred and less expensive food | [53] |
Household Hunger Scale (HHS) | Experiential | 30 days | This is a simple indicator of acute food insecurity. It allows for an examination of households in what can be considered dire positions | Captures degrees of severity | Not sensitive to chronic aspects; pride causing internal validity problems | In the last 30 days, did you or any household member go to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food? • How often did this happen in the last 30 days? | [77] |
Percent Expenditure (Food_Exp) | Economic | Typical month | This is a simple measure of how much a household spends on food in proportion to their income. It has theoretical and applied importance. As this number grows, it indicates more economic distress in ensuring food security | Easily interpreted; telling indicator of market forces | Survey error with participant recall; sensitive to seasonal and economic variations; food produced by the household not included | 1. In the last 12 months, how much income did your household make? 2. In a typical month, how much of your income is spent on the following items? • Food |