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Development of a two‐item quick screen for household food insecurity assessment
Author(s) -
Na Muzi,
West Keith,
Shamim Abu Ahmed,
Mehra Sucheta,
Labrique Alain,
Ali Hasmot,
Wu Lee,
Klemm Rolf,
Christian Parul
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.1054.2
Subject(s) - food insecurity , worry , trait , scale (ratio) , item response theory , environmental health , psychology , test (biology) , cutoff , food security , medicine , geography , agriculture , psychometrics , clinical psychology , computer science , biology , psychiatry , anxiety , paleontology , physics , cartography , archaeology , quantum mechanics , programming language
Developing an abbreviated assessment scale may enable household food insecurity (HFI) to be assessed more rapidly in developing countries. Using data from 11,243 households in rural Bangladesh, we used latent trait analysis to identify 2 out of 9 questions on a standardized Food Access Survey Tool (FAST) that has been used to identify food insecure households. The latent trait analysis utilizes test parameters that reflect qualities of “discrimination” and “difficulty” in the way questions are answered by respondents. From the 9‐item FAST, the 2 questions that best discriminated households with at least mild food insecurity focused on the frequencies with which household respondents indicated they “buy rice” and “worry about food”. Against a mild‐moderate HFI cutoff using the full 9‐item scale, a positive response to either of the above 2 questions yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 87.5% and 100%, respectively. It is possible to closely approximate the performance of the original 9‐item FAST questionnaire with two questions, thereby improving efficiency in screening households with mild‐moderate food insecurity. Grant Funding Source : Supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant GH614)