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Assessing Potential Technical Enhancements to the U.S. Household Food Security Measures

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  • Nord, Mark

Abstract

The statistical measures used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 1995 to monitor the food security of the Nation’s households—the extent to which they can consistently acquire adequate food for active healthy living—are based on a single-parameter logistic latent-trait measurement model (the Rasch model). A panel convened, at USDA’s request, by the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Academies in 2003-06 recommended that USDA explore five potential technical enhancements to that model. USDA has adopted one CNSTAT panel recommendation, which corrects the methods used to model the frequency-of-occurrence followup questions in the food security scale. This study examines the implications of that change and assesses the other four potential enhancements and the extent to which they would affect USDA’s published food security statistics. The study findings suggest that introducing the more complex statistical models would improve measurement of food security little, if at all, while making results and methods more difficult to explain to policy officials and the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Nord, Mark, 2012. "Assessing Potential Technical Enhancements to the U.S. Household Food Security Measures," Technical Bulletins 142549, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uerstb:142549
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.142549
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Nord, Mark & Andrews, Margaret & Carlson, Steven, 2011. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2010: Statistical Supplement," Administrative Publications 292116, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Nord, Mark & Andrews, Margaret S. & Carlson, Steven, 2011. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2011," Economic Research Report 134715, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Nord, Mark, 2005. "Measuring U.S. Household Food Security," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, pages 1-2, April.
    4. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Nord, Mark & Andrews, Margaret S. & Carlson, Steven, 2011. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2010," Economic Research Report 118021, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Nord, Mark & Bickel, Gary, 2002. "Measuring Children'S Food Security In U.S. Households, 1995-99," Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Reports 33801, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    6. James Ohls & Larry Radbill & Allen Schirm, 2001. "Household Food Security in the United States, 1995-1997: Technical Issues and Statistical Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 1fdf21cb2cd64f628ceb54c25, Mathematica Policy Research.
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    Cited by:

    1. Rabbitt, Matthew P & Smith, Michael D, 2021. "Food Insecurity Among Working-Age Veterans," Economic Research Report 327194, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Smith, Michael D., 2021. "Food Insecurity Among Working-Age Veterans," USDA Miscellaneous 311332, United States Department of Agriculture.
    3. Victoria T. Tanaka & George Engelhard & Matthew P. Rabbitt, 2020. "Using a Bifactor Model to Measure Food Insecurity in Households with Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 492-504, September.
    4. Elena Grimaccia & Alessia Naccarato, 2019. "Food Insecurity Individual Experience: A Comparison of Economic and Social Characteristics of the Most Vulnerable Groups in the World," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 391-410, May.
    5. Adam M. Lippert & Barrett A. Lee, 2021. "Adult and Child Food Insecurity Among Homeless and Precariously-Housed Families at the Close of the Twentieth Century," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(2), pages 231-253, April.
    6. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Gregory, Christian A., 2017. "Examining an "Experimental" Food Security Status Classification Method for Households with Children," Technical Bulletins 264418, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Smith, Michael D. & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Coleman- Jensen, Alisha, 2017. "Who are the World’s Food Insecure? New Evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 402-412.
    8. Elena Grimaccia & Alessia Naccarato, 2020. "Confirmatory factor analysis to validate a new measure of food insecurity: perceived and actual constructs," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1211-1232, August.
    9. MacLachlan, Matthew & Chelius, Carolyn & Short, Gianna, 2022. "Time-Series Methods for Forecasting and Modeling Uncertainty in the Food Price Outlook," USDA Miscellaneous 327370, United States Department of Agriculture.
    10. Rabbitt, Matthew P., 2013. "Measuring the Effect of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation on Food Insecurity Using a Behavioral Rasch Selection Model," UNCG Economics Working Papers 13-20, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    11. Poliana Araújo Palmeira & Ruben Araújo Mattos & Rafael Pérez-Escamilla & Rosana Salles-Costa, 2021. "Multisectoral government programs and household food insecurity: evidence from a longitudinal study in the semiarid area of northeast, Brazil," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(3), pages 525-538, June.
    12. Ibrahim Kasujja & Hugo Melgar-Quinonez & Joweria Nambooze, 2023. "Day Scholars Food Insecurity Experience Scale-Survey Module (DSFIES-SM): Psychometric Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    13. Christian A. Gregory, 2020. "Are We Underestimating Food Insecurity? Partial Identification with a Bayesian 4-Parameter IRT Model," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 37(3), pages 632-655, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics; Food Security and Poverty; Health Economics and Policy;
    All these keywords.

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