Validation of measures of food insecurity and hunger

The most recent survey effort to determine the extent of food insecurity an d hunger in the United States, the Food Security Supplement, included a ser ies of questions to assess this complex phenomenon. The primary measure dev eloped from this Food Security Supplement was based on measurement concepts , methods and items from two previously developed measures. This paper pres ents the evidence available that questionnaire-based measures, in particula r the national food security measure, provide valid measurement of food ins ecurity and hunger for population and individual uses, The paper discusses basic ideas about measurement and criteria for establishing validity of mea sures and then uses these criteria to structure an examination of the resea rch results available to establish the validity of food security measures. The results show that the construction of the national food security measur e is well grounded in our understanding of food insecurity and hunger, its performance is consistent with that understanding, it is precise within usu al performance standards, dependable, accurate at both group and individual levels within reasonable performance standards, and its accuracy is attrib utable to the well-grounded understanding. These results provide strong evi dence that the Food Security Supplement provides valid measurement of food insecurity and hunger for population and individual uses. Further validatio n research is required for subgroups of the population, not yet studied for validation purposes, to establish validity for monitoring population chang es in prevalence and to develop and validate robust and contextually sensit ive measures in a variety of countries that reflect how people experience a nd think about food insecurity and hunger.