Measures Registry

Six-Item Subset (Short Form) of the 12-month Food Security Scale

Description

The Six-Item Subset (Short Form) of the 12-month Food Security Scale items were taken from the 18-item Food Security Scale. This short form scale is intended to be used to quickly assess nutrition-based constructs among adults. Specifically, food security, food insecurity, and hunger are measured.

Purpose

The Six-Item Subset (Short Form) of the 12-month Food Security Scale is a method to rapidly assess food security status among adults.

Population

Adults

Year of Publication

2000

Reference

Source Article: Bickel, G., Nord, M., Price, C., Hamilton, W., Cook, J. (2000). Guide to measuring household food security. United States Department of Agriculture. https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/FSGuide.pdf

Analytics Article: United States Department of Agriculture. (2012). U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module:
Three-Stage Design, with Screeners. United States Department of Agriculture.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/DataFiles/50764/26621_hh2012.pdf?v=3672.4

Number of Items

Scale Types (Likert=Likert Type; MC=Multiple Choice; T/F=True/False; OR=Open Response)

Likert Type

Likert: Responses change depending on the item

Subscales

N/A

Scoring

Individual item answers are scored as affirmative (1) or negative (0), with specific rules for which answers are affirmative and which answers are negative for each item. Total affirmative answers are summed, with a score of 0-1 indicating high or marginal food security, a score of 2-4 indicating low food security, and a score of 5-6 indicating very low food security. Additional scoring information can be found in the "Coding Responses and Assessing Household Food Security Status" section of the Analytics article.

Administration

Self-Administered

Readability/ Literacy Level

N/A

Languages

English

Reliability

N/A

Validity

N/A

Limitations

N/A

Availability

Publicly Available

Cost

Free

Other Considerations

N/A