Description

FSFOODS indicates whether the household had enough to eat or enough of the kinds of foods they wanted to eat in the past twelve months.

This question is one the preliminary questions used consistently since 1998 to determine which households are screened into the Food Sufficiency and Food Security section of the supplement. Households with incomes above 185% of poverty that experienced problems accessing enough food or enough of the foods they wanted to eat continue the supplement. Lower income households and those that run short of money for food (FSSHORT) also complete the supplement.

Prior to 1998, screening procedures varied. FSSTATUS95 provides a historically comparable measure of household food insecurity. FSSCREEN can also be used to identify a consistent analytic sample.

Comparability

The question wording changed over time. From 2000 onward, a single question was asked about access to enough food and the kinds of food desired. In other years, split panels were provided with experimental wording. With the exception of 1998, these have been harmonized with the standard question. In 1998, the experimental wording of the question for one group (households were the months in sample was four) was too different to be harmonized with other years.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables