This presentation aims to provide a quick overview of current ways of measuring food security, with a focus on qualitative tools and the challenges they face.

1. MEASURING FOOD
SECURITY:
CHALLENGES IN
QUALITATIVE
ASSESSMENT
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2. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS FOOD SECURITY?
• Food security matters: it is a human right, it affects health but also politics and the economy.
• Food security is a complex and multidisciplinary concept. The 1996 World Food Summit
provides the following definition: “Food security, at the individual, household, national,
regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and
economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and
food preferences for an active and healthy life”.
• Food insecurity occurs when those conditions are
not met, and it is considered to be the opposite of
food security. It can be chronic, seasonal, or
transitory (Jones et al, 2013).
• The terms nutrition insecurity, undernourishment
and hunger are also used when talking about food
insecurity. Even though those concepts overlap,
they do not mean the same thing (Jones et al,
2013).
This presentation aims to provide a quick overview of current ways of measuring food security,
with a focus on qualitative tools and the challenges they face.
Distinctions and overlaps between hunger, food
insecurity, nutrition insecurity and undernutrition
Source: Benson, 2004 as reproduced in Ghattas, 2014.

3. WHAT ARE THE MAIN DIMENSIONS OF FOOD
SECURITY?
Stability over time
Availability
Is the food
physically
available?
Access
Is the food
physically
accessible?
Is the food
affordable?
Is the food
safe to eat?
Is the food
culturally
acceptable?
Is the food
acquired by
the
household?
Utilization
Is the food
allocated to
and eaten by
the individual?
What is the
individual’s
nutritional
status?
• Those dimensions are affected positively or negatively by various factors, such as climate
change, political instability, food prices, household composition, food preparation, gender
dynamics and many others (FAO, 2008; Jones et al, 2013).
When measuring food security, we need to address those dimensions and define which
questions are being answered to mark out the scope and limits of the study.
Adapted from Jones, 2014.

4. HOW DO WE MEASURE FOOD SECURITY?
• Historically, food security has first been measured as the
availability of national food supply (food balance sheet
data). The national and regional level measurement
tools now can address both availability and access (Jones
et al, 2013).
• Household level tools focus on access while individual
level tools focus on utilization. Some household measures
follow a participatory process and are context-specific, e.g.
Coping Strategies Index that assess coping mechanisms of
households in the wake of food shortages (Jones et al,
2013).
• Experienced-based measures try to directly measure
household food access (Jones et al, 2013).
• In the context of a global nutrition transition,
overweight and obesity are starting to being
included in measurement tools as consequences of
food insecurity (Ghattas, 2014).
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification
(IPC)
Source: FAO, 2008.
IPC is a tool based on international
standards that is used to classify food
security crises. It allows cross country
comparisons.

5. WHAT ARE QUALITATIVE MEASURES?
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2016,
May 16). Measuring food insecurity: how the FIES Scale was born.
Bringing the numbers to life. Full version. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVnbjabLs80&t=457s
Start at 4:17 for the history and description of the Food Insecurity
Experience Scale. Start at the beginning for an history of food
insecurity.
• Qualitive measurement focuses on quality
rather than quantity, and on the “why” and
“how”. Measurement tools can be
qualitative, quantitative, or both. For
instance, the Global Food Security Index, a
national level tool, uses both qualitative and
quantitative indicators to provide a ranking
of the country’s food security performance.
Among other things. it measures the
government’s take on nutritional standards.
That requires consensual interpretation by
experts (Jones et al, 2013).
• Although qualitative questions have been
translated into closed ended questions for
faster analysis and comparability,
experienced-based measures form a
relatively new, context-specific approach
that is interesting to focus on (see video on
the right).

6. AN ADAPTATION OF USDA’S FOOD
INSECURITY AND HUNGER MODULE TO THE
PERUVIAN CONTEXT
• A study published in 2009 adapted a scale
developed in the USA to assess the
perceptions of food insecurity by Peruvian
households (both urban and rural) in three
geographically different regions (Vargas &
Penny, 2010).
• The study used mixed methods, with an initial
qualitative phase, including key informant
interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic
research, followed by a quantitative phase,
where the questionnaire established in the
previous phase was tested (Vargas & Penny,
2010).
• Results show regional differences in the
concerns, depending either on poverty or
climate for instance, in coping strategies and in
the knowledge around balanced diets, in
relation to NGO interventions (or the lack of).
Reliability was attested by the quantitative
analysis (Vargas & Penny, 2010).
• The adaptation resulted in rephrasing and
adding context-specific questions, notably
related to the food aid programs. The tool
showed differences from other adaptations in
the Latin American region (Vargas & Penny,
2010).
This example highlights the importance of context-specific adaptation, which is a time and
resource intensive process.

7. WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES AND
LIMITATIONS OF QUALITATIVE MEASURES?
Opportunities Limitations
Easy to use Costly and time consuming to develop
Rigorous A single scale might not be sufficient
Integrate perceptions of those affected
context-specific
Not directly applicable to another situation
Adapted from Kennedy, 2003.
• Experience-based, qualitative measures capture social, cultural and psychological
dimensions of food insecurity and hunger that are not brought to light by other tools
(Ghattas, 2014).
• Yet, they do not help in grasping the structural factors affecting food security (Ghattas,
2014). The specificity of the tool leads to difficulties in drawing a definite line between
food secure and food insecure people across the world (Jones et al, 2013). Additionally,
not all aspects of the participants’ experience are captured, such as the feeling of shame
or a change in personal standards of food insecurity (Jones et al, 2013). Response biases
can be attributed to the respondent view, which might differ from other household
members, and to a change in perception when remembering earlier experiences (Jones

8. WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO OVERCOME
CHALLENGES?
• In order to adapt experienced-based measures in different contexts and allow for
comparison, there is a need to:
– Define the time scope of the study (what is the period of time to which the
questions are referring?),
– Define the size of questionnaire,
– Define food secure/insecure individuals/households,
– Update the questions according to changing norms (Kennedy, 2003).
• The results of such measurements need to be easy to interpret and trusted by policy
makers so that they can respond to them in food security policies; this can be achieved
by using findings from complementary measures in the interpretative process
(Kennedy, 2003).

9. CONCLUSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS
As stated at the beginning, food security is a very complex issue. A single tool
cannot grasp all the dimensions associated with it, a better understanding requires a
combination of complementary measures, both quantitative and qualitative.
• Can you think of any other aspects of food security that are not taken into account in
current measures? If so, how could we measure them? Is it possible to have a
comprehensive understanding of food security by measuring its component, or is the
whole different than the sum of its parts (as it could be argued with a systems thinking
approach)?
• In your opinion, what are the unique inputs of qualitative measures in comparison with
quantitative measures in the context of food security? How are they complementary?
• What are the changes to be expected for qualitative measurement tools, in particular
in regard to changing cultural norms?

10. REFERENCES
• FAO. (2008). Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security. Food and
Agriculture Organization: Rome, Italy.
• Ghattas, H. (2014). Food Security and Nutrition in the context of the Global Nutrition
Transition. Food and Agriculture Organization: Rome, Italy.
• Jones, A. D., Ngure, F. M., Pelto, G., & Young, S. L. (2013). What are we assessing when
we measure food security? A compendium and review of current metrics. Advances in
Nutrition, 4(5), 481-505.
• Vargas, S., & Penny, M. E. (2010). Measuring food insecurity and hunger in Peru: a
qualitative and quantitative analysis of an adapted version of the USDA’s Food
Insecurity and Hunger Module. Public health nutrition, 13(10), 1488-1497.
• Kennedy, E. (2003). Qualitative measures of food insecurity and hunger. Keynote paper
for the International Scientific Symposium on Measurement and Assessment of Food
Deprivation and Undernutrition. Food and Agriculture Organization: Rome, Italy.