Technical Note No. 12

Introducing a Simple Measure of Household Hunger for Cross-Cultural Use (2011)

Food security includes three fundamental elements: adequate food availability, adequate access to food, and appropriate food utilization/consumption. Separate indicators and data collection methods are needed to assess each element, and comparative data are useful to inform decisions. There are well-established measures that can be used to compare levels of availability and utilization/consumption across population groups, cultural settings, or countries. However, until now, no equivalent validated field-practical methods to measure household hunger or to compare food access across cultures have been developed.

After nine years of research and testing, FANTA-2, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Tufts University, has developed the Household Hunger Scale (HHS), a field-practical method and simple tool to measure household food deprivation that allows for valid comparison across cultures. The HHS can help improve geographic targeting of food insecurity interventions and M&E of food security policies and programs. The HHS will soon become a USAID Food for Peace required indicator, as well as a Feed the Future indicator. The HHS report, Validation of a Measure of Household Hunger for Cross-Cultural Use, describes the findings from the research and testing. The technical note introduces the HHS and provides summary information.

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