An assessment of various household food security measures in Hawaii has implications for national food security research and monitoring

The Core Food Security Module (CFSM), the national food security monitoring tool, requires three affirmative responses to categorize households as foo d insecure. If this tool is unreliable or inaccurate, vulnerable segments o f our population may be adversely affected. The objectives of the present s tudy were to assess the credibility of applying the CFSM categorical measur e to a population sample from Hawaii and to assess the concurrent validity of the CFSM, the new face-valid measure and measures adapted from the Radim er/Cornell (RC) measure and Community Childhood Hunger identification Proje ct. The sample included 1469 respondents gathered through a statewide telep hone sample and 144 food pantry recipients. Responses to the 18 CFSM questi ons were used to create all four measures. The credibility of the CFSM cate gorical measure was also assessed via comparisons with individual items and with the 1995 national modal CFSM response pattern. Categorical measures w ere compared across food security prevalence estimates and indices of incom e and vegetable intake and with the CFSM scale measure. Differences in the modal response pattern between samples affected CFSM categorization. Only 3 6% of households followed the Hawaii modal response pattern, and categoriza tion was not consistent with the content of key items. Although 85% of the households were classified as food secure by the CFSM, only 78% were classi fied as food secure with each of the other food security measures. Concurre nt validity of all measures was confirmed. A reassessment of the national C FSM categorical measure appears warranted.