Assessing the internal validity of a household survey-based food security measure adapted for use in Iran

Nutrition Journal

Table 5 Measured values of severity of food insecurity among children by raw score on Isfahan children's food security scale, and percentage of households with each raw score

Raw score	Household score*	Measurement error	Percent of households***	Cumulative percent of households***
0	Unknown**	NA	47.27	47.27
1	3.29	0.93	4.95	52.22
2	4.85	1.18	15.56	67.78
3	7.07	1.29	21.31	89.09
4	8.64	0.82	3.64	92.73
5	9.55	0.77	2.83	95.56
6	10.59	0.92	2.32	97.88
7	11.36**	1.13	2.12	100.00

* Maximum likelihood estimates based on item calibrations in table 1.
** The severity of children's food insecurity in households that affirmed no items (raw score = 0) cannot be estimated based only on item calibrations. The children in these households are more food secure than those in households that affirmed one item, but the size of the interval is unknown. Technically, the severity of children's food insecurity in households that affirmed all 7 items is also unknown, but given that this comprises only a small proportion of households with children, it is conventional to estimate their severity at a raw score of 6.5, as was done in this case.
*** Households with no children present were omitted from these calculations.

ISSN: 1475-2891