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Abstract
Defining and interpreting food security, and measuring it in reliable, valid and
cost-effective ways, have proven to be stubborn problems facing researchers and
programs intended to monitor food security risks. This paper briefly reviews the
conceptual and methodological literature on food insecurity measurement, describes a
particular method for distinguishing and measuring short-term food insecurity at the
household level, and discusses ways of generalizing the method. The method
developed enumerates the frequency and severity of strategies relied on by urban
households when faced with a short-term insufficiency of food. This method goes
beyond more commonly-used measures of caloric consumption to incorporate
vulnerability elements of food insecurity as well as the deliberate actions of household
decision-makers when faced with food insufficiency.