Dimensions of Food Security:
Availability, Utilization, and Stability Pillars (or Dimensions) of Food Security
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Dimensions of Food Insecurity — User Guide
The guide provides a brief background on the development of the measures, descriptions of the measures, examples for potential uses, guidance for scoring and interpreting scores.
Measures
The measures below assess perceived limited availability, utilization barriers and food insecurity stability.
Perceived Limited Availability
This measure assesses perceived availability of fruits and vegetables, preferred foods, and healthful foods at either food stores (three items) or food pantries (three items) that the household utilizes.
English: Food store version | Food pantry version
Spanish: Food store version | Food pantry version
Simplified Chinese: Food store version | Food pantry version
Traditional Chinese: Food store version | Food pantry version
Food Insecurity Stability
This measure includes three items that are meant to be used as “follow-up” questions to three household food security items in the USDA’s Household Food Security Survey Module. Responses can be used to determine scores for chronic food insecurity, seasonal food insecurity, intra-monthly food insecurity, and intermittent food insecurity.
English version
Spanish version
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Utilization Barriers
This measure includes eight items (or two sub-scales of four items each) which assess tangible and intangible barriers to being able to utilize accessible food to prepare a healthful meal. There is also a brief two-item social needs screener version (see user’s guide).
English version
Spanish version
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Manuscript Describing Development and Validity Testing
Calloway EE, Carpenter LR, Gargano T, Sharp JL, Yaroch AL. New measures to assess the “Other” three pillars of food security–availability, utilization, and stability. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2023 Apr 26, 2023. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10134599/