Viewpoint: Food insecurity among college students: A case for consistent and comparable measurement

On the basis of an 18-item Household Food Security Scale, a short form was developed to assess financially based food insecurity and hunger in surveys of households with and without children. To maximize the probability that households would be correctly classified with respect to food insecurity and hunger, 6 items from the full scale were selected on the basis of April 1995 Current Population Survey data. The short form classified 97.7% of households correctly and underestimated the prevalence of overall food insecurity and of hunger by 0.3 percentage points. The short form of the Household Food Security Scale is a brief but potentially useful tool for national surveys and some state/local applications. Show more

Numerous international studies have examined cross-sectional correlates of food insecurity (FI) among postsecondary education students. Research is needed to synthesize the findings of this work to support vulnerable students.