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. 1999 Aug;89(8):1231-4.
doi: 10.2105/ajph.89.8.1231.

The effectiveness of a short form of the Household Food Security Scale

S J Blumberg  1 , K Bialostosky, W L Hamilton, R R Briefel
Affiliations

The effectiveness of a short form of the Household Food Security Scale

S J Blumberg et al. Am J Public Health. 1999 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: On the basis of an 18-item Household Food Security Scale, a short form was developed to assess financially based food insecurity and hunger in surveys of households with and without children.

Methods: To maximize the probability that households would be correctly classified with respect to food insecurity and hunger, 6 items from the full scale were selected on the basis of April 1995 Current Population Survey data.

Results: The short form classified 97.7% of households correctly and underestimated the prevalence of overall food insecurity and of hunger by 0.3 percentage points.

Conclusions: The short form of the Household Food Security Scale is a brief but potentially useful tool for national surveys and some state/local applications.

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