Abstract
BackgroundSeasonality poses a considerable food security challenge in Ethiopia. Yet, measuring seasonal variations in food insecurity, particularly the dimension of food access, lacks an adequately validated tool. We therefore evaluated the performance of an adapted Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) to estimate seasonal variations in food insecurity (FI) among subsistence villagers in Ethiopia.MethodsWe employed a cohort study design using a panel of four repeated measurements taken in June, September, and December in the year 2017, and in March 2018. The study recruited 473 villagers from the drought-affected Wolaita area in southwest Ethiopia. The performance of the HFIAS was evaluated via internal consistency (Chronbach’s alpha values) and criterion validation techniques. The set of criteria include: parallelism between affirmative responses to FI questions and wealth strata; dose-response relationship between FI and dietary intake; and also FI severity and household wealth status.ResultsThis study revealed that the HFIAS had satisfactory performance in four repeated measurements. The likelihood of affirmative responses to questions about FI decreased with ascending wealth quintiles. We observed an inverse dose-response relationship between FI and wealth status, and between FI and household dietary diversity.ConclusionsThe HFIAS showed an acceptable potential for measuring seasonal variations in FI in the study area. Our findings complement efforts to evaluate the scale’s applicability in various settings, in order to promote cross-culture monitoring and comparisons. However, it required a careful adaption for contextual and cultural sensitivities.
Highlights
Seasonality poses a considerable food security challenge in Ethiopia
This study evaluated the performance of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for assessing seasonal variations in food insecurity (FI) in the rural Wolaita area in southwest Ethiopia
Our results showed that affirmative responses decreased with increasing severity of the nine HFIAS questions, which supports Coates et al [18], but somewhat inconsistent with previous studies in Ethiopia [23], Tanzania [21], and Iran [22]
Summary
Seasonality poses a considerable food security challenge in Ethiopia. Measuring seasonal variations in food insecurity, the dimension of food access, lacks an adequately validated tool. We evaluated the performance of an adapted Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) to estimate seasonal variations in food insecurity (FI) among subsistence villagers in Ethiopia. More than 800 million people globally still suffer from lack of sufficient food, food insecurity (FI). Food security measurement has four common dimensions: availability, access, utilization, and stability of the other three dimensions over time [1]. Food availability often lacks accuracy in quantifying how adequately food is distributed at household and individual levels [2]. Food utilization dimension applies non-specific indicators that do not take into account subjective experiences of households [6,7,8]
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