Abstract
One-third of India’s urban population resides in extreme poverty, in slums and squatters. Food insecurity remains a visible reality among this segment. Yet, it is scarcely documented. This paper describes levels and determinants of experiential household food insecurity (HFI) in an underserved urban slum of Delhi (India) and reports the internal validity and reliability of the measure used to assess experiential HFI. A four-item scale was adapted from the U.S. six-item short-form food security scale and was administered in Hindi through household interviews with 410 female adults. Association of HFI with household economic and socio-demographic characteristics were examined using multiple logistic regression. Cronbach’s alpha and Rasch-model-based item fit statistics were used to assess reliability and internal validity. Fifty-one percent of households were food insecure. Significant HFI predictors were unemployed to employed family members’ ratio of > 3:1 (Odds Ratio 2.1, Confidence Interval 1.2 – 3.4) and low household standard of living (OR 4.9, C.I. 2.7 – 8.9). Cronbach’s alpha was 0.8. Item severities as estimated under Rasch model assumptions spanned 9.7 logits. Item infit statistics (0.77 – 1.07) indicated that the Rasch model fit the data well. Item outfit statistics suggested that one item was inconsistently understood by a small proportion of respondents. For improving HFI among the urban poor, in addition to improving behaviors/entitlement access, programs should consider linkage of urban poor to existing employment schemes, upgrading of their skills and linkage to potential employers. The adapted scale was reliable and easy to administer. However, being a subjective assessment, its sensitivity to social expectation and its association with nutrition security require examination.
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Notes
The U.S. Department of Agriculture used these food security category labels in its early food security research (Hamilton et al. 1997). Subsequently, the categories “food insecure with moderate hunger” and “food insecure with severe hunger” were collapsed into a single category “food insecure with hunger.” Beginning in 2006, new category labels were introduced: “low food security” replaced “food insecure without hunger” and “very low food security” replaced “food insecure with hunger”.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the respondents and local facilitators for their active participation in this study. We are thankful to Pradeep Patra, Mainak Chatterjee, S. Kaushik, Paramita Banerjee and Dimple Kondal for their support.
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The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the institutions the authors are affiliated with.
Authorship Statement
SA conceptualized and designed the study and participated in conceptualization of the paper. VS conceptualized the paper and analysis plan, conducted the descriptive data analysis and drafted the manuscript. AA designed the study tools and supervised data collection and data entry. AA also participated in conceptualization of the paper. PG and MJ collected the data, carried out the data entry and participated in data interpretation. MD conducted the Rasch model analysis and wrote related sections of the manuscript. All authors provided inputs in reviewing and editing the manuscript.
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Agarwal, S., Sethi, V., Gupta, P. et al. Experiential household food insecurity in an urban underserved slum of North India. Food Sec. 1, 239–250 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-009-0034-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-009-0034-y