Description

FSDAYMOCAT indicates how many days out of the past 30 that adults in the household did not eat for a whole day because there was no money for food. This variable is available only for households that reported adults did not eat for a whole day at some point in the past 12 months (FSDAYF).

Prior to 2019, FSDAYMOCAT responses ranged from 0-30 days. In 2019, a categorical system was introduced to reduce the risk of disclosing respondent identities. FSDAYMOCAT recodes responses in samples from before 2019 to use the 2019 categorical responses. The original continuous responses for those samples are available in FSDAYMO.

The questions used to construct this variable are two of the 18 items included in 30-day household food security scale, FSSTATUSM. Households are screened into Food Sufficiency and Food Security section of the supplement based on income and preliminary questions on food access (see FSSCREEN for more information). Within this section, there are two internal screeners; and FSDAYF is subject to the second of these screeners.

Comparability

This variable is generally comparable over available years since 1995, and the universe is generally consistent since 1998. From 1998 onwards, only households that in the past year cut the size of meals or skipped meals (FSSKIPYR), ate less than they thought they should (FSLESSYR), lost weight because they couldn't afford to buy more food (FSLOSEWT), or went hungry (FSHUNGR) continue on to answer FSDAYF and FSDAYMO.

Prior to 1998, both the internal screeners and the screening procedures used to determine which households were screened into the food security assessment varied. Researchers need account for this when including data prior to 1998.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables