Measuring food insecurity and hunger in Peru: a qualitative and quantitative analysis of an adapted version of the USDA鈥檚 Food Insecurity and Hunger Module.
Abstract
Objective: To adapt a scale to measure perceptions on food insecurity and hunger among households in urban and rural communities in Peru.
Design: Qualitative and quantitative methodology including consultation with regional experts, key informant interviews and focus groups. A field survey trial was conducted in urban and rural communities using an adapted version of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Insecurity and Hunger Module (FIHM).
Setting: Five communities in three regions in Peru 鈥� Lima (coast), Ayacucho (Andean highlands) and San Mart铆n (Amazon basin).
Subjects: The qualitative component included forty intentionally selected people (fourteen key informants and twenty-six focus group participants). For the quantitative component 300 households that complied with selection criteria (poor or non-poor with at least one child below 12 years of age) were surveyed.
Results: Qualitative research showed that concern about food availability and access was common among the three regions but its main cause varied across them. Participation in food aid programmes was a strategy to face constraints in food access. Mothers鈥� perceptions on the importance of balanced meals varied across households from different regions. Quantitative results showed robust findings for the reliability of the adapted FIHM鈥檚 fifteen-item scale (r > 0路863). In addition, descriptive results confirmed parallelism of item responses in the scale for variables such as farm ownership, family size and use of Communal Kitchens.
Conclusions: This mixed-method study allowed us to adapt the USDA module to assess food insecurity in Peru.
Citation
Public Health Nutrition (2010) 13 (10) 1488-1497 [DOI: 10.1017/S136898000999214X]