USAID General Publications Household Hunger Scale - Indicator Definition and Measurement Guide
Published: 2011-08-20
Despite long-standing efforts to improve the food security situation of populations globally, food deprivation and its physical consequences remain a continuing problem in resource-poor areas throughout the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that, in 2010 alone, 925 million people worldwide did not have access to sufficient food to meet their dietary energy requirements.
Arguably, one of the first steps to effectively addressing food insecurity is to establish reliable methods for measuring it. In the absence of reliable measurement, it is not possible to target interventions appropriately, to monitor and evaluate programs and policies, or to generate lessons learned to improve the effectiveness of these efforts in the future.