Presentazione standard di PowerPoint · Dr. Kathy L. Radimer Ph.D. dissertation: Understanding Hunger and Developing Indicators to Assess It, Cornell University, August 1990. “The

VOICES

HUNGRY

Experiences count Global monitoring of Food Insecurity through experience-based indicators

of the

Carlo Cafiero FAO Statistics Division

30 August 2013

Introduction

Background information

Conceptual issues

Practical implementation

Expected outcomes

Discussion

Thursday, 12 September 2013

FAO Statistics Division

Overview of the presentation • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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The establishment of a global system allowing fine-grain monitoring of Food Insecurity can no longer be postponed

Inequalities are increasingly recognized as being at the heart of development problems for the near future, thus country level monitoring, focusing on macro data, no longer suffices to understand evolution and to guide intervention

The evolution of globalization and the increased volatility of financial and commodity markets call for increased timeliness of all monitoring effort. Measurement risks lagging behind history



Why Voices of the Hungry? • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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We need to ensure a globally valid standard to allow proper comparison of situations across countries and across social groups

Current practice with traditional household surveys is problematic for cost effective rapid and consistent monitoring worldwide Innovation in direct data collection and

information processing methods provides the basis for significant improvements

Gallup World Poll is one example of a feasible, global survey conducted annually with common methodology

Sophisticated use of the theory of latent trait measurement allows defining a common metrics



Why Voices of the Hungry? • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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FAO is in the ideal position to validate, promote and maintain such a system Food Security is being identified as the new

challenge for the next few decades FAO is at the nexus of the international

governance system of food security Committee on World Food Security (CFS) UN Thematic Consultation on Food and Nutrition

Security New Strategic Framework Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural Statistics



Why FAO? • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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We all think we know what food insecurity is, yet operationalizing the definition has been overly challenging, and the results thus far are clearly insufficient Only two official indicators available for global

monitoring: MDG indicators 1.8 (prevalence of children underweight) and 1.9 (prevalence of people below minimum level of dietary energy consumption)

They tend to be broadly misinterpreted (i.e., they have been expected to capture the impact of the food price crisis) and it is difficult to make full sense of trends and correlations (i.e., with poverty trends, or economic growth)



What is Food Insecurity? • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

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The current WFS “mantra” is of little practical relevance for monitoring Literally hundreds of indicators have been

proposed, tested, used, and all criticized for failing to provide a comprehensive picture

Compilation of aggregate indexes (ex. IFPRI’s GHI or the EIU Global Food Security Index) or of dashboards with multiple indicators is problematic Arbitrariness of weights Difficult interpretation

Very little is being said in terms of what should be meant by the term insecurity Is it a feeling? A risk? How does variability of the past

convey information on the prospect for the future? Thursday, 12 September 2013


What is Food Insecurity? • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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Dr. Kathy L. Radimer Ph.D. dissertation: Understanding Hunger and Developing Indicators to Assess It, Cornell University, August 1990.

“The lack of an operational definition for hunger has been frequently cited as a barrier to

progress in addressing the problem.”

“Three scales, one each for household, women’s, and children’s hunger, emerged and were found

to be valid and reliable indicators for measuring hunger directly”

(Radimer et al., 1992) It establishes the concept of food insecurity as an

experiential construct Thursday, 12 September 2013


A new avenue opened in 1990 • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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US HFSSM

Quite a history since • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



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FANTA Household Food Insecurity

Access Scale (HFIAS)

Escala LatinoAmericana

y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria

(ELCSA)

Radimer-Cornell Scale

FAO Food Insecurity Experience Scale

10:21:34 AM

The concept • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10

Food security

Food insecurity

mild moderate severe

Worries Compromising food quality and variety

Hunger Compromising food quantity

Undernutrition (stunting, wasting)

Welfare reduction (Psychological

costs, reduction of other essential

expenses

Malnutrition (obesity,

micronutrient deficiencies,

reduced work capacity)

Starvation Wellbeing

The FIES: a set of questions spanning the range of experiences

The following questions are being asked in the 2013 round of pilots:

“During the last 12 months, was there a time when, because of lack of money or other resources:

1. You were worried you would run out of food? 2. You were unable to eat healthy and nutritious food? 3. You ate only a few kinds of foods? 4. You had to skip a meal? 5. You ate less than you thought you should? 6. Your household ran out of food? 7. You were hungry but did not eat? 8. You went without eating for a whole day?”

How often respondents answer “Yes” (and possibly, to which

questions) will be used to establish their position on a Food Insecurity Experience Scale that differentiates between mild, moderate and severe food insecurity Thursday, 12

September 2013


The (current version of) FIES • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

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Experiences, not opinions The scales are based on actual experiences, that

is facts, not opinions Typical experiences are invariably associated

with food insecurity. The challenge is to identify the crucial ones that

are meaningful in most cases

Self-reported, not subjective Self reporting is not to be necessarily considered

less reliable than other ways of collecting information Ex.: Labor statistics



A few misconceptions • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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Assuming that: there exist a latent (unobservable) characteristic or

feature to be measured outcomes can be observed that depend on the latent

trait A model can be defined for the probability

of occurrence of the observable outcome as a function of the unobservable trait

A sound statistical procedure can be established to estimate the value of the latent trait for a subject Econometrics: discrete choice models in willingness

to pay studies (McFadden) Psychometrics: Item Response Theory Food Security measurement (Hamilton et al., Nord)



Measuring latent dimensions • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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The probability of correctly responding to a test item is a function of the severity of the item and of the competence of the respondent

A dataset of responses to the same set of test items can thus be used: To validate the test, by measuring the level of

severity of each item To assess each respondent’s ability



Item Response Theory • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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The probability of reporting on a certain food insecurity experience is a function of the severity of the experience and of the level of food insecurity of the respondent

A dataset of responses to the same questionnaire by a sample of individuals can be used: To validate the questionnaire, by revealing the

severity associated to each experience, in the specific context

To locate each respondent’s food insecurity level on the scale spanned by the set of experiences

To link food insecurity to other respondent characteristics (an opportunity still largely unexplored) Thursday, 12

September 2013


Experience-based food security • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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A measure of severity of food insecurity is assumed to exist as a number defined on the real line

Conditions denoting increasing levels of food insecurity severity can be defined (i.e., “items” along the scale)

Individuals are assumed to possess levels of food insecurity on the same scale

The severity of the items, the location of the individual, and the thresholds to classify respondents can be estimated from the data on the responses to the same set of questions by a (numerous) sample of respondents



The analytics • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion Respondent h

Thresholds

min max Item 3 Item 2 Item … Item n Item 4 Item 1

10:21:34 AM

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The probability that an individual characterized by food insecurity level h will have experienced item i, over a certain reference period is treated as a function of both item and individual parameters

The simplest possible such model (one parameter logistic model - OPLM), assumes that:

As this probability is 0.5 when h = i, this model implicitly defines the “severity” of an item as the severity of an individual for whom there are equal chances to have or have not experienced that item

This provides the basis for estimating both items’ and respondents’ parameters through a maximum likelihood procedure, as the likelihood of having observed a certain pattern of responses to a set of questions can be treated as a function of the individuals’ and of the items’ parameters Thursday, 12

September 2013



• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

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• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

)(

)(

1)"esPr(" ih

ih

eeY −

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0.5

Item i

10:21:34 AM

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Respondent 1

Respondent 2

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Pr(“yes”;h2,i)

Pr(“yes”;h1,i)

Item j

Pr(“yes”;h1,j,)

Using a sound and common survey methodology On nationally representative samples With personal or phone interviews, in local

language After proper cultural and linguistic adaptation

To include a Food Insecurity Experience Scale in a worldwide poll Covering 140+ countries, including all crucial

emerging and developing countries

Use the data collected to inform the compilation of a set of food security indicators at country level

The Voices of the Hungry project • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10:21:34 AM

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Linguistic and cultural adaptation Getting the wording right

Inadequate linguistic adaptation and translation of the scale questions may cause their meaning and how they are understood by respondents to differ across cultural and linguistic groups

Proper analytic treatment of data There may be true differences in the way people

experience food insecurity, suggesting that a unique scale may not work universally even if the translation is accurate and the analysis is appropriate

Items may not be equally discriminating on all context Classifying respondents’ food security status using the

raw score may not be the most appropriate analytic approach



The Challenges • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

10:21:34 AM

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The project was showcased at the 2012 Olympic Global Hunger Event The indicators recognized as leading

indicators of potentially more serious malnutrition problems Timeliness makes it actionable Giving “voices” to the hungry increases

accountability We have secured the support of a highly

qualified scientific advisory committee Angus Deaton, Lawrence Haddad, Romulo

Paes de Souza, Mark Nord, Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez

Where are we thus far… • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10:21:34 AM

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2012: initial piloting in four countries Germany, DR Congo, India and China Lessons learned led to modifications for the

second round of pilots to be run in 2013.

Decisions have been made to: Shift from households’ to individuals’

experiences Reduce the number of questions to be included

2013: New (complete) pilots are being conducted in Ethiopia, Angola, Niger and Malawi


• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10:21:34 AM

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Extended protocol for linguistic adaptation Focus group discussion on how to render the

concepts in the local language

Development of R routines for parameter estimation and scoring

Completion of the tests will allow definition of the appropriate protocol for adaptation, validation and data processing methodology



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• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion

2013 will be devoted to refining adaptation to varying cultural and linguistic contexts Possibly carrying out other pilots in Central Asia,

NENA, South-East Asia

Research (adaptation and validation) will be conducted throughout 2013 and 2014

Capacity development activities are initiated to ensure the scale could be properly and consistently applied in all relevant food security monitoring systems

What’s ahead… • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10:21:34 AM

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The final objectives is to ensure that the new standard for measuring food insecurity is Valid (research) Endorsed at international and country level (advocacy) Used (capacity development)

We shall produce: Validated Food Insecurity Experience Questionnaires in local

languages to be used in all countries in the World to collect the data to

inform the new indicators on the severity of food insecurity Datasets on Experienced Food insecurity on 140 countries,

made publicly available through a dedicated web portal National indicators on the severity of Food Security

made available on an annual basis, through web based Food Security portals and official publications

The percentage of people experiencing severe food insecurity could form the basis for monitoring progress towards a new food security target in the Post 2015 development agenda

What we shall obtain… • Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion



10:21:34 AM

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• Introduction

• Background

• Concepts

• Practice

• Outcomes

• Discussion Thanks!

Thursday, 12 September 2013 FAO Statistics Division 26

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Presentazione standard di PowerPoint · Dr. Kathy L. Radimer Ph.D. dissertation: Understanding Hunger and Developing Indicators to Assess It, Cornell University, August 1990. “The