Using Household and Intrahousehold Data To Assess Food Insecurity: Evidence from Bangladesh

This report finds that many women and children in rural Bangladesh are undernourished in households in which their male head of household is adequately nourished, based on an analysis of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey. The survey covered household food consumption and expenditure for a given 7 days and individual-level consumption for a given 24 hours (2011 to 2012). Quantitative assessments of food secu­ rity for each type of data found that, if only household-level data were used, a signifi­ cant number of women and children were misclassified as receiving adequate nutrition because calories in a household previously were assumed to be equitably distributed. These findings suggest that intrahousehold data can contribute to the identification of undernourished populations, particularly women and children. Such identification, with the objective of improving nutritional status, is of particular interest to the U.S. Government’s interagency Feed the Future initiative.