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A Child‐Administered Food Security Scale is Associated with Household Socio‐Economic Status, Household Food Security and Diet Diversity
Author(s) -
Jamaluddine Zeina,
Choufani Jowel,
Sahyoun Nadine R,
Ghattas Hala
Publication year - 2017
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.31.1_supplement.297.2
Subject(s) - food security , scale (ratio) , context (archaeology) , food insecurity , per capita , environmental health , respondent , psychology , geography , agriculture , medicine , political science , population , law , cartography , archaeology
Recent studies have shown that children are able to accurately describe their own experiences of food insecurity, however few studies have quantified this experience, and none have done this in the Middle Eastern context. Informed by a previous qualitative analysis of child food insecurity in Lebanon, we developed a set of items to quantify child food insecurity experience, aiming to develop and validate an Arabic child food security scale (CFSS). Fourteen items were developed and administered as part of a study on food security and nutrition in schools, to 6–16 year old children attending four UNRWA schools for Palestinian refugee (n=1381). We used statistical methods based on Item Response Theory (Rasch model) to assess internal validity of the proposed CFSS. Further validation of the scale was conducted by examining associations through linear and logistic regression with socio‐demographic, economic, household food security and diet diversity variables. STATA 13 and R 3.1.3 were used for data analysis. Three items were dropped from the scale due to high infit statistics and high residual correlation with other items. The resulting 11‐item scale had acceptable reliability (0.77), sensitivity (0.86) and specificity (0.96). CFSS was correlated with household food security score (p<0.001). When categorized into food secure (score 0–2) and food insecure (score 3+), there was 63.6% alignment between child food insecurity and household food insecurity. Food insecure children came from households with lower income (p=0.02) and expenditures per capita (p<0.001), higher household crowding (p=0.004), had less educated mothers (p<0.001), lower household diet diversity (p=0.001) and lower household consumption of meat (p<0.001) and fruit (p<0.001). Child food security in Palestinian refugee schoolchildren in Lebanon was accurately measured through an 11‐item questionnaire and was associated with household socio‐economic status, household food security and diet diversity. This tool is appropriate to assess child food insecurity experience directly with children, and can be used in school‐based interventions, where obtaining data from parents may be cumbersome. Support or Funding Information This research was funded by The Nestlé Foundation for the Study of Problems of Nutrition in the World