Affiliations: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Matthew P. Rabbitt, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, USA. Tel.: +1 202 694 5593; Fax: +1 202 245 4779; E-mail: [email protected].
Note: [1] The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Economic Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Abstract: In this article we examine whether the implementation of a standardized Spanish-language Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) affects comparisons of food insecurity measures between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White households. We find that some of the food insecurity items are measuring different levels of the severity of (latent) food insecurity between these groups, but that these differences are small. While differences in the measured severity of food insecurity between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White households were small, implementation of the standardized Spanish-HFSSM improved the reliability and performance of the food insecurity items. Concerns about the bias associated with differences in the measured severity of food insecurity between these groups were assessed and found to be negligible, suggesting the Spanish- and English-language HFSSMs produce comparable measures of food insecurity.
