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This page lists key publications and resources on the following topics:
Household Food Security
Community Food Security
Household Food Security: Annual
Reports
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2007—11.1 percent of U.S.
households were food-insecure at some time during the
year in 2007, and 4.1 percent had very low food security.
This report, based on data from the December 2007 food
security survey, provides the most recent statistics on
the food security of U.S. households as well as on how
much they spent for food and the extent to which food-insecure
households participated in Federal and community food
assistance programs (November 2008).
Earlier annual reports in this series: 
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2006 (November 2007)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2005 (November 2006)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2004 (October 2005)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2003 (October 2004)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2002 (October 2003)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2001 (October 2002)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 2000 (March 2002)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 1999 (September 2000)
Household Food Security
in the United States, 1998 and 1999: Detailed Statistical
Report (June 2002)
Prevalence of Food Insecurity
and Hunger, by State, 1996-1998—USDA's baseline
report on food security prevalence rates by State. Averaged
over 3 years, the prevalence of food insecurity exceeded
the national average rate in 11 States and the District
of Columbia, was below the national average in 20 States,
and was at or near the national average in the remaining
19 States (September 1999).
Household
Food Security in the United States, 1995-1998: Advance
Report
(July 1999)
Household
Food Security in the United States in 1995: Summary Report
of the Food Security Measurement Project—Describes
the development of the U.S. Household Food Security Scale
and provides the first national assessment of household
food security in the United States (September 1997).
Household Food Security: Technical
Reports and Survey Tools
Does Interview Mode Matter for Food Security Measurement?
Telephone versus In-Person Interviews in the Current Population
Survey Food Security Supplement—This article demonstrates
that telephone and in-person food security interviews
in the Current Population Survey are comparable with small,
or at most modest, differences. Mark Nord and Heather
Hopwood, 2007, “Does Interview Mode Matter for Food
Security Measurement? Telephone versus In-Person Interviews
in the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement,” Public Health Nutrition 10 (12): 1474-80 (August
2007).
Food
Insecurity and Hunger in the United States: An Assessment
of the Measure—An extensive review was conducted
at USDA's request by an independent panel of experts convened
by the National Research Council's Committee on National
Statistics to ensure that USDA's data collection and methodology
in the areas of food security and hunger are relevant
and scientifically sound (2006). 
Food Security of Older Children Can Be Assessed by Using
a Standardized Survey Instrument—This article
describes the development and assessment of a food security
survey module adapted for self-administration by children
12 and older. Questions were adapted from the U.S.
Household Food Security Survey Module, refined through
focus groups and cognitive interviews, and tested in a
pilot survey. The abstract is available from the American
Society for Nutrition. The questionnaire
is available on this site. Carol L. Connell, Mark
Nord, Kristi L. Lofton, and Kathy Yadrick, “Food
Security of Older Children Can Be Assessed Using a Standardized
Survey Instrument,” The Journal of Nutrition
134:2566-72 (2004).
A 30-Day Food Security
Scale for Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement
Data—This report describes and assesses a 30-day
household food security scale that can be applied specifically
to the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement
(CPS-FSS) data collected between 1995 and 2004. The report
specifies procedures for calculating the revised 30-day
scale from CPS-FSS data and classifying households as
to 30-day food security status (August 2002).
Spanish
Translation of the Food Security Survey Module—A
Spanish translation of the U.S. Household Food Security
Survey Module developed by UCLA researchers is available
from the Journal of Nutrition, the American Society
for Nutrition. See "Development
of a Spanish-Language Version of the U.S. Household Food
Security Survey Module," including the Spanish-language
module and a description of its development and testing,
publicly available at no cost from their website (April 2003).
Household Food Security
in the United States, 1998 and 1999: Technical Report—This
report explores key technical issues related to Current
Population Survey Food Security Supplement data, focusing
especially on the August 1998 and April 1999 surveys.
Technical issues include the estimation of standard errors,
the effect of alternating survey periods between spring
and fall for the 1995-99 CPS Supplement, and the effect
of using different Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling
approaches and software to create the food security scale
(June 2002).
Measuring Children's
Food Security in U.S. Households, 1995-99—This
report describes the Children's Food Security Scale developed
by USDA and presents statistics on the prevalence of hunger
among children in U.S. households for the years 1995-99
as well as for subgroups defined by household structure,
race and ethnicity, income, and rural/urban residence.
The report provides detailed information on how to implement
the scale in other surveys (April 2002).
Guide
to Measuring Household Food Security, Revised 2000
(PDF, 189K)—Provides detailed guidance for researchers
on how to use the U.S. Household Food Security Survey
Module to measure household food security and food insecurity
at various levels of severity. Statistics from surveys
that use these methods will be directly comparable with
published national statistics (March 2002).
Second Food Security
Measurement and Research Conference, Volume I: Proceedings
and Volume II: Papers—This
two-volume set documents the Second Food Security Measurement
and Research Conference (February 23-24, 1999) that sought
to establish a stable measurement strategy to monitor
the food security status of the U.S. population. Volume
I contains abbreviated proceedings of all presentations.
Volume II contains
a set of research papers that provide further detail on
the research findings presented at the conference (February
2001).
Household
Food Security in the United States, 1995-1997: Technical
Issues and Statistical Report
and Executive
Summary—This report examines the stability of
the food security measurement scale over time and across
different types of households, the thresholds used to
classify households as to their food security status,
screening issues related to ensuring comparability of
food security statistics among the 1995-97 CPS food security
supplements, and alternative imputation strategies for
dealing with missing data (December 2001).
Household
Food Security in the United States in 1995: Technical
Report of the Food Security Measurement Project—Describes
the analysis through which the food security scales and
food security status variable were developed, as well
as related tests of the reliability and validity of these
measures (September 1997).
Household Food Security: Articles
and Research Reports
General
Household-Level Income-Related Food Insecurity Is Less
Prevalent in Canada Than in the United States—This article
examines differences between Canada and the United States
in the prevalence and distribution of household-level
income-related food insecurity. Mark Nord, Michelle D.
Hooper, and Heather Hopwood, “Household-Level Income-Related
Food Insecurity Is Less Prevalent in Canada Than in the
United States,” Journal of Hunger and Environmental
Nutrition 3 (1):17-35 (2008).
Struggling
to Feed the Family: What Does it Mean to Be Food Insecure?—This
article in Amber Waves describes hardships that
some households face in meeting their food needs and the
relationship between food insecurity and income, household
characteristics, State economic conditions, and State
policies (June 2007).
Characteristics of Low-Income
Households With Very Low Food Security: An Analysis of
the USDA GPRA Food Security Indicator—Describes characteristics
of low-income households that had very low food security
in 2005. Under the Government Performance and Results
Act (GPRA), USDA monitors the food security of low-income
households to assess how effectively domestic nutrition
assistance programs meet the needs of their target populations
(May 2007).
Dynamics of Poverty
and Food Sufficiency—This
study examines dynamics in poverty and food insufficiency
using longitudinal data from the 1993 panel of the Survey
of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the follow-on
Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD) (September 2003).
Putting
Food on the Table: Household Food Security in the United
States—This Amber Waves article describes the prevalence of food
security and food insecurity in U.S. households in 2001
and trends in these statistics since 1995 (February 2003).
Frequency
and Duration of Food Insecurity and Hunger in U.S. Households—This
is the first nationally representative study of the extent
to which food insecurity is frequent, recurring, or occasional
in U.S. households (September 2002).
 Food Insecurity in
Higher Income Households—This
study examines middle- and high-income households to determine
the extent to which these households were food insecure
and what proportion may have been incorrectly identified
as food insecure because of measurement problems. A small
proportion, at most, of measured food insecurity among
middle- and high-income households appears to be due to
misunderstanding of questions or erratic responses. Some
households in these income groups are food insecure due
to factors such as uneven incomes or changes in household
composition during the year or to the existence of multiple
economic units in the same household (September 2002).
Reducing Food
Insecurity in the United States: Assessing Progress Toward
a National Objective—Assesses progress toward
the U.S. Government's Healthy People 2010 objective of
reducing the rate of food insecurity in the Nation to
half of its 1995 level by 2010 (May 2002).
The Food
Stamp Program and Food Insufficiency—This
study examines the extent to which higher food insufficiency
rates of food stamp participants are due to adverse selection—the
self selection of more food-needy households into the
Food Stamp Program. When adverse selection is taken into
account, food stamp recipients have the same probability
of food insufficiency as nonrecipients (January 2002).
Food
Stamp Participation and Food Security—This Food Review article assesses whether the decline
in Food Stamp Program participation by low-income households
in the late 1990s was due in part to their having found
it more difficult or less socially acceptable to get food
stamps (January 2001).
Children
 Measuring Children’s Food Security—This article in the Journal of Nutrition describes the development
of, and recent improvements in, methods for measuring
children’s food security. Mark Nord and Heather Hopwood,
“Recent Advances Provide Improved Tools for Measuring
Children's Food Security,” Journal of Nutrition
137:533-36 (2007).
Hunger in the Summer: Seasonal Food Insecurity and the
National School Lunch and Summer Food Service Programs—This
article examines the effects of summertime meals provided
by the National School Lunch and Summer Food Service programs
on household food insecurity. Seasonal differences—higher
prevalence of food insecurity in the summer—were
greater for households with school-age children than for
other households. Mark Nord and Kathleen Romig, “Hunger
in the Summer: Seasonal Food Insecurity and the National
School Lunch and Summer Food Service Programs,” Journal
of Children and Poverty 12(2): 141-58 (2006).
Food Assistance
Research Brief: Food Insecurity in Households With Children—This
brief examines the extent to which the diets and eating
patterns of American children are disrupted because their
families cannot always afford enough food (July 2003).
Hunger:
Its Impact on Children’s Health and Mental Health—This
study examines the independent contribution of child hunger
on children's physical and mental health and academic
functioning after controlling for a range of environmental,
maternal, and other factors that are associated with poor
health among children. Using standardized tools, comprehensive
demographic, psychosocial, and health data were collected
in Worcester, MA, from homeless mothers and their children
and for housed low-income mothers and their children (October
2002).
Elderly
Seasonal Variation in Food Insecurity Is Associated with
Heating and Cooling Costs among Low-Income Elderly Americans—This
article examines the association between household food
insecurity and seasonally high heating and cooling costs.
Low-income households, especially those consisting entirely
of elderly persons, experienced substantial seasonal differences
in the incidence of very low food security (the more severe
range of food insecurity) in areas with high winter heating
costs and high summer cooling costs. Mark Nord and Linda
S. Kantor, “Seasonal Variation in Food Insecurity
is Associated with Heating and Cooling Costs among Low-Income
Elderly Americans,” The Journal of Nutrition
136: 2939-44 (2006).
 Measuring
the Food Security of Elderly Persons—This
article in Family Economics and Nutrition Review
assesses the appropriateness of the U.S. Food Security
Scale for measuring the food security of elderly people.
Based on analysis of 3 years of data from the Current
Population Survey Food Security Supplement, the findings
indicate that the Food Security Scale fairly represents
the food security status of the elderly compared with
that of the nonelderly (2003).
Food
Security Rates Are High for Elderly Households—Households
that include elderly persons are generally more food secure
than other U.S. households. Rates of food insecurity and
hunger among households consisting entirely of elderly
people remained almost unchanged from 1995 (September 2002).
States and Rural Areas
What Factors Account for
State-to-State Differences in Food Security?—This
report describes State-level and household-level factors
associated with State prevalence rates of food insecurity.
Most of the interstate differences in food insecurity
are accounted for by these two factors (November 2006).
State-Level Predictors
of Food Insecurity and Hunger Among Households With Children—Almost
all of the observed interstate differences in food security
of households with children can be explained by cross-State
differences in measurable demographic and contextual characteristics
(October 2005).
Explaining
Variations in State Hunger Rates—This
article in Family Economics and Nutrition Review
examines the effects of State-level economic and demographic
characteristics on State-level prevalence rates of food
insecurity and food insecurity with hunger. Most of the
State-to-State differences in food insecurity are explained
by high costs of housing, seasonally high unemployment,
high poverty rates, high residential mobility, and a high
proportion of children in the State population (2004).
Rates
of Food Insecurity and Hunger Unchanged in Rural Households—Compares
food security in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan households
in 2000 and describes trends in food security in nonmetropolitan
households from 1998 to 2000 (Winter 2002).
Household
Food Security in the Rural South: Assuring Access to Enough
Food for Healthy Lives—This
policy brief, published by the Southern Rural Development
Center in the series "The Rural South: Preparing
for the Challenges of the 21st Century," examines
the prevalence of food insecurity in households in the
rural South in 1998 and 1999 (August 2001).
Prevalence
of Hunger Declines in Rural Households—Compares
food security in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan households
in 1998 and describes trends in food security in nonmetropolitan
households from 1995 to 1998 (2000).
New Indicator
Reveals Similar Levels of Food Security in Rural and Urban
Households, Rural Conditions and Trends—Compares
food security in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan households
in 1995 (February 1999).
Community Food Security: Articles
and Reports
Community Food Security
Assessment Toolkit—This
report provides a toolkit of standardized measurement
tools for assessing various aspects of community food
security, including a general guide to community assessment
and materials for examining six basic assessment components.
These include guides for profiling general community characteristics
and community food resources as well as materials for
assessing household food security, food resource accessibility,
food availability and affordability, and community food
production resources (July 2002).
Community
Food Security Programs Improve Food Access—This
article examines how community-based efforts, such as
farmers markets, food cooperatives, community-supported
agriculture, farm-to-school initiatives, and community
gardens, complement Federal food assistance programs (January
2001).
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