Examination of an Abbreviated Household Food Security Survey in Rural Uganda

Household food security has been used to screen participants and evaluate program effectiveness for an agriculture and economic development project implemented by Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns (VEDCO) in Kamuli District, eastern Uganda. Objectives This study examines the validity of The Latin American Household Food Security Measurement Scale (ELCSA) for use in an African region. Methods Stratified random sampling was used to select 70 households with children under the age of 6 yrs within six geographic parishes. Female caregivers (n = 70) in the household were interviewed for one to two hours. Results The 16‐item instrument is valid for this region (Cronbach's alpha= 0.94). However, a much smaller subset of questions, the ‘hunger’ domain consisting of four questions from the survey, achieves a comparable level of validity (Cronbach's alpha= 0.90) in assessing households at risk of food insecurity. Factor analysis of the 16‐item assessment tool confirms the hunger items as having core importance in the survey, in line with other recent literature. Conclusions The use of an abbreviated measurement tool would reduce participant burden in food security assessment. Research Support: The Wilbur G. Downs International Student Health Travel Fellowship and the Office of Student Research at the Yale School of Medicine.