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Food Insecurity Measures: Experience-Based Versus Nutrition-Based Evidence From India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia

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  • Broussard, Nzinga H.
  • Tandon, Sharad

Abstract

Using data from three household surveys in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and India, this report compares two commonly used measures of household food insecurity: a measure of caloric consumption (reported undernourishment) and an experiential measure. In the second measure, a single affirmative response to whether the house - hold experienced certain conditions or behaviors due to insufficient food designates a household as food-insecure (experiential-based measure). The authors demonstrate that a significant share of households categorized as undernourished because their caloric consumption is below 2,100 calories do not report experiencing any form of food insecurity. This finding is robust across different experiential food security metrics and different contexts. For India, which used a single indicator of experi - enced food insecurity, the experiential measure had the least overlap with the caloric consumption measure compared with the measure used in the other two country case studies. Although the measure from the Ethiopian survey, which contained nine expe - riential questions, had the most overlap with the caloric consumption measure of food insecurity compared with the measures used in India and Bangladesh, there was still substantial misclassification of food security status among households. These findings suggest that even if the overall prevalence of food security is similar when estimated with experiential and other measures of food security, experiential measures appear to be classifying a different subset of the population as food-insecure.

Suggested Citation

  • Broussard, Nzinga H. & Tandon, Sharad, 2016. "Food Insecurity Measures: Experience-Based Versus Nutrition-Based Evidence From India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia," Economic Research Report 262189, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uersrr:262189
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.262189
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Christensen, Cheryl, 2018. "Progress and Challenges in Global Food Security," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 0(01), February.
    2. Smith, Michael D. & Kassa, Woubet & Winters, Paul, 2017. "Assessing food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean using FAO’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 48-61.
    3. Tandon,Sharad Alan, 2022. "Are Subjective Questions on Welfare Appropriate during Crises ? Evidence from the Onsetof Conflict in the Republic of Yemen," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10178, The World Bank.
    4. Nadia Koyratty & Andrew D. Jones & Roseanne Schuster & Katarzyna Kordas & Chin-Shang Li & Mduduzi N. N. Mbuya & Godfred O. Boateng & Robert Ntozini & Bernard Chasekwa & Jean H. Humphrey & Laura E. Smi, 2021. "Food Insecurity and Water Insecurity in Rural Zimbabwe: Development of Multidimensional Household Measures," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-23, June.
    5. Bekele Gebisa Etea & Deyi Zhou & Kidane Assefa Abebe & Dessalegn Anshiso Sedebo, 2019. "Household Income Diversification and Food Security: Evidence from Rural and Semi-Urban Areas in Ethiopia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-16, June.
    6. Villacis, Alexis H. & Mayorga, Joaquin & Mishra, Ashok K., 2022. "Experience-based food insecurity and agricultural productivity in Nigeria," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    7. Amondo, Emily Injete & Kornher, Lukas & von Braun, Joachim, 2024. "Short-term dynamics of food and nutritional security, poverty, and resilience – analyses of high-frequency household surveys in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh," IAAE 2024 Conference, August 2-7, 2024, New Delhi, India 344300, International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE).

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    Keywords

    Food Security and Poverty; International Development; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods;
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