Assessing Potential Technical Enhancements to the U.S. Household
Food Security Measures by Mark Nord Technical Bulletin No.
(TB-1936) 130 pp, December 2012 What Is the Issue? The U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS)
monitors the food security of the Nation’s households—the extent
to which they can consistently acquire adequate food for active
healthy living—using data from an annual, nationally
representative survey. Responses to multiple indicators of food
insecurity by each surveyed household are combined to determine
the food security status of the household. Statistical methods
based on a single-parameter logistic latent-trait measurement
model are used to assess the food security questions and scales
based on them. In 2003-06, at USDA’s request, the Committee on
National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Academies convened
an expert panel to assess the methods USDA uses to measure and
report household food security. The panel recommended that USDA
continue to monitor food in