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Food and Nutrition Security
Related Measures

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About This Project

The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition, with funding from the Walmart Foundation, developed new measures that are complementary to the existing USDA Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). The new measures aim to provide a more holistic assessment of the food insecurity experience. These are low-burden and self-administered modules that address critical measurement gaps related to food security that are of interest to both practitioner and academic audiences. The measures assess household resilience, nutrition security and dietary choice and the three pillars of food security that are not currently captured by the HFSSM (availability, utilization and stability). The measures were developed by Gretchen Swanson Center with guidance from an expert advisory group of food security and nutrition researchers and practitioners. Items went through cognitive interviews, pilot testing and psychometric testing before being finalized. User guidance documents describe the administration and scoring of the new measures.

 
 

We received the opportunity to present these new measures on the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) Nutrition Security Webinar Series. Click the button below to watch the full webinar.

 

“These complementary and supplemental measurement tools are necessary to better understand what people need to overcome the barriers preventing them from having access to sufficient and nutritious food. These new measures, developed in collaboration with researchers, practitioners and food insecure individuals, can be used by organizations to help inform the development and effectiveness of their programs seeking to address food access.”

- Eileen Hyde, Senior Director Community Resilience, Walmart.org

“Since no single intervention will ever be sufficient to address the epidemic of poor dietary intake, obesity and diabetes in the United States, we need to provide easy tools for researchers across the U.S. to be deploying, testing and refining various interventions and combinations of interventions.”

- Dr. Hilary Seligman, Expert Working Group Member

Measures

 


Household Resilience: Absorptive Capacity, Adaptive Capacity and Transformative Capacity

These measures assess factors associated with a household’s ability to react to and handle household-level financial shocks that might otherwise lead to food insecurity (e.g., job loss, unexpected bill, expensive home damage not covered by insurance, etc.).

 


“Other” Three Pillars: Availability, Utilization and Stability Pillars of Food Security

These measures assess perceived limited availability, utilization barriers and food insecurity stability.

 


Nutrition Security and Related Measures: Household Nutrition Security, Healthfulness Choice and Dietary Choice

These measures assess factors associated with the ability for a household to obtain foods that meet their nutritional and health needs, and dietary preferences, without resource limitations or worry.

Manuscripts Describing Development and Validity Testing

Calloway EE, Carpenter LR, Gargano T, Sharp JL, Yaroch AL. (2022). Development of three new multidimensional measures to assess household food insecurity resilience in the United States. Frontiers in Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1048501

Calloway EE, Carpenter LR, Gargano T, Sharp JL, Yaroch AL. (2022). Development of new measures to assess household nutrition security, and choice in dietary characteristics. Appetite. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.106288

Calloway EE, Carpenter LR, Gargano T, Sharp JL, Yaroch AL (2023). New measures to assess the “Other” three pillars of food security - availability, utilization, and stability. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-023-01451-z 

Development Overview 

In the first phase of this measures development work, GSCN developed a modular suite of measures that assess aspects of food insecurity that were not currently considered in the USDA Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) and that provide practical information to inform programming.

This phase began by identifying gaps in food and nutrition security related measurement and then developing survey modules to address those gaps. Gaps were identified through literature review, consultation with experts, and interviews with individuals experiencing food insecurity across the country. Based on those inputs, we developed draft survey modules to assess the measurement gaps. We conducted cognitive interviews to further refine the modules, piloted the final items in 5 states, and developed a final modular suite of measures based on rigorous psychometric testing.

Watch the full USDA NIFA webinar for more information about the development and testing of these measures.

Supported Publication Grantees

With funding from the Walmart Foundation, the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition (GSCN) developed and piloted nine new measures that assess food insecurity-related constructs. Through the measurement development process, pilot data were collected from nearly 1,000 households which predominantly had limited income and/or experienced food insecurity. Through additional resources, GSCN was able to fund three junior researchers to utilize the pilot dataset and scores for at least one of the new measures, conduct secondary data analyses investigating novel research questions or hypotheses, and publish their results in an open-access journal. The following three proposals were selected for funding in January 2023.

 
 

Maha Almohamad, MS - UTHealth Houston

Research Questions

  • Does nutrition insecurity moderate the relationship between food insecurity and self-reported cardiovascular disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes?

  • Do nutrition assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), moderate the relationship between nutrition insecurity and cardiovascular disease risk factors?

 
 
 

G.E. Bastian, PhD,RDN, LN - SDSU School of Health & Consumer Sciences/SDSU Food & Families Programs Extension

Research Questions

  • Which sociodemographic factors are predictive of the four subtypes of food security instability (chronic, seasonal, intramonthly, and intermittent)?

  • Do heads of households facing any of these types of food insecurity stability have higher odds of being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, diabetes or kidney disease?

 
 
 

Jessica Cheng, PhD, CPH - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Research Questions

  • How does participation in SNAP impact perceptions of availability and choice of healthy food?

  • Do these effects differ by education or race and ethnicity?

How Others Are Using the Measures

 

ProMedica

ProMedica is a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization focused on improving the health and well-being of people in hundreds of communities across the country. They are based in Toledo, Ohio, where they operate hospitals, senior care services, health clinics, and community programming to address social determinants of health.  

When ProMedica patients screen positive for food insecurity during hospital/clinical visits, they are referred to ProMedica’s food clinic where they receive food, nutrition counseling, and referrals to other services. When those patients arrive at the food clinic, they are asked a short questionnaire (nine questions) that contains the brief screener versions of six of the newly developed measures. Patients that screen positive are referred to nutrition counseling and/or a financial skill-building program.  

Alliance of Massachusetts YMCAs

The Alliance of Massachusetts YMCA serves their member YMCAs and their communities to help create a healthy and socially-responsible environment which enriches the lives of all people and future generations. The YMCAs in MA operate a number of programs that address nutrition and food security including cooking classes, mobile food pantries, meal delivery programs, preschool and after school care programs, summer meals sites, and a family food box program.  

Three member YMCAs in MA are using the new measures to conduct a needs assessment. These YMCAs built a survey by combining four of the newly developed measures and questions assessing demographics. They plan to survey households they serve in order to better understand their needs and inform their approaches to providing support. 

 Contact Us

For questions or more information, please contact Senior Research Scientist Eric Calloway, PhD at ecalloway@centerfornutrition.org. To coordinate a media interview, please contact Marketing and Communications Manager Courtney Freitag at cfreitag@centerfornutrition.org.