Adaptation of the U.S. Food Security Survey Module in a small rural Dominican Republic community

A pilot to assess food insecurity

Abstract

Food insecurity continues to affect a significant proportion of the population in many countries. The concept and measurement of food insecurity at the household and individual levels has been an area of extensive research resulting, among other things, in the development of the Food Security Survey Module (FSSM) in the United States, where it is now the standard methodology for determin­ing household food security status. One of the pur­poses of this study was to adapt the U.S. FSSM and assess its validity in the context of a less developed economy. We administered the U.S. FSSM in a pilot household survey of 110 low-income families in the Dominican Republic in 2006–2007 from information generated from a focus group a year earlier. The survey results indicated that 93% of the respondents were food-insecure, of whom 80% experienced very low food security (food insecurity with hunger). In 89% of households with children, children faced very low food security (food insecu­rity with hunger). The results of this pilot study demonstrate at a preliminary level the validity of the FSSM in its adapted and modified form for assessing the degree of food insecurity in the Dominican Republic.