Publications
The World's Hunger and Future Needs in Food Supplies
01/01/1961
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, A (General) 124, 463-585.
The FAO Parametric Versus the IFPRI Non-Parametric Approach in Estimating the Prevalence of Undernourishment: Issues Relating to the Use of Household Level Data from National Household Surveys
01/01/2003
A non-parametric approach suggested by researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for measuring food deprivation (undernourishment) is not an improvement to the current FAO parametric approach. This is mainly due to flaws arising from the use of an inappropriate methodological framework and the reliance on single household data from national household surveys (NHS) that are subject to undesirable sources of variation.
The relationship between food insecurity and dietary outcomes. An analysis conducted with nationally representative data from Kenya, Mexico, Samoa and the Sudan
02/08/2021
Little research has been conducted on the association of food insecurity, particularly at the moderate level, and dietary consumption in low- and middle-income countries. This study expands on previous works by considering cross-country comparable measures of food insecurity that are calibrated against the global Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). The FAO Statistics Division has been publishing estimates of the prevalence of food insecurity, based on the FIES, since 2017.
Food Security and Nutrition in the context of the Global Nutrition Transition
02/06/2014
This paper presents the conceptual linkages between food security and nutrition and reviews data on the associations between experience-based measures of food insecurity and nutritional status outcomes in countries at different stages of the nutrition transition.
A review of studies examining the link between food insecurity and malnutrition
03/09/2018
A review of 120 studies published since 2006 was undertaken to examine the relationship between food insecurity at the household or individual level and the following nutrition indicators: child stunting, child wasting, low birth weight, exclusive breastfeeding of infants < 6 months of age, anaemia in women of reproductive age, child overweight and adult obesity.
Food security and food consumption in Samoa. Based on the analysis of the 2018 household income and expenditure survey
01/09/2020
This report is one of the outputs of the Technical Cooperation Programme project (TCP/SAP/3705) aimed at strengthening the capacity of Pacific Island Countries to monitor SDG Target 2.1. The process started in March 2019 with the analysis of the food data collected in the 2018 Household Income and Expenditure survey (HIES) in collaboration with Samoa Bureau of Statistics.
Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) in Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico
03/09/2018
To compare the psychometric characteristics of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) and the grade of similitude or difference among Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico during three years.
The Prevalence and Socio-Demographic Correlates of Food Insecurity in Poland
27/08/2020
While food insecurity (FI) has been extensively studied in many countries, there have been few empirical contributions in Poland to date. The main objective of our research was to identify the socio-demographic factors affecting the risk of FI in Poland within 2014-2019. Moreover, we aimed to examine the effects of the family-oriented social program "Family 500+" by comparing the situation in various types of households with children a few years before and after the program was launched.
Monitoring and projecting global hunger: Are we on track?
01/09/2021
This paper presents the first global picture of food security at a subnational level based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, the indicator for the Sustainable Development Goal of “Zero Hunger” that is most indicative of the individual’s lived experience of food insecurity and hunger.
Global food security research using data from the Gallup World Poll
01/03/2019
FAO’s Voices of the Hungry Project has developed a new global standard for estimating the number of people experiencing food insecurity, called the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). The FIES was first incorporated into the Gallup World Poll (GWP) questionnaire in January 2014, making it possible for FAO to provide annual country-level estimates of the prevalence of food insecurity at different levels of severity.
Who are the World’s Food Insecure? New Evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale
02/05/2017
This is the first paper that identifies and examines the common determinants of food insecurity in 134 countries using this cross-country comparable experiential measure of food insecurity.
Methods for estimating comparable prevalence rates of food insecurity experienced by adults throughout the world. Voices of the Hungry Technical Report Number 1
01/04/2016
The Voices of the Hungry project has developed the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, a new metric for household and individual food insecurity. It brings us a step closer to hearing the voices of the people who struggle every day to have access to safe and nutritious food.
The Food Insecurity Experience Scale - Development of a global standard for monitoring hunger worldwide
01/01/2013
FAO has been a partner in the development, validation and use of food (in)security scales since 2006 and has had an important role in furthering the research on the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale (Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria - ELCSA) through financial support for regional conferences on food security measurement and capacity-building in developing countries regarding validation and use of these tools (Melgar-Quinonez, 2010; FAO, 2012a).
Food security measurement in a global context: The food insecurity experience scale
01/02/2018
The ability of households and individuals to access food (one of the key aspects of 'food security') is an important welfare dimension that poses important challenges for objective measurement. This paper describes the Rasch model-based procedures developed to define the eight-item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) as a contribution towards the establishment of an indicator for global monitoring of food insecurity.