Recent Advances Provide Improved Tools for Measuring Children’s Food Security

Abstract

Food security, or consistent access to adequate food, is important for children's health and development. The first U.S. assessment of children's food security was conducted in 1995 using the U.S. Household Food Security Scale, a measure based on 18 survey questions developed by the USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Three recent developments have improved on that early measurement method and expanded the scope for assessing children's food security. 1) Development of the Children's Food Security Scale, based only on the 8 child-referenced questions in the U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module, improved the measurement of children's food security and was found to have excellent internal validity. 2) Questions indicating severe ranges of food insecurity and referenced to an individual child (answered by an adult proxy) were tested in a national health survey and found to have acceptable internal validity. 3) A food security measure based on a self-administered module was validated (internal validation only) for children ≥12 y of age. Children's food security is correlated with that of adults in the same household, but the relation depends on the ages of children, such that separate measures of children's and adults' food security appear to provide better assessment than a single measure that attempts to represent both. Further research is needed to assess the relation between food security and children's diet quality/variety and the effects of children's food security on their health and development.