Last modified: 2018-05-17
Abstract
In order to face food insecurity as a global phenomenon, it is essential to rely on measurement tools that guarantee comparability across countries. Although the official indicators adopted by the United Nations in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) already embed cross-country comparability, results from other experience-based scales are currently based on national thresholds. In this paper we address the issue of comparability of food insecurity experience-based scales by presenting two different studies. The first one is between the FIES and the national scales ELCSA, EMSA and EBIA currently included in national surveys in Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil. The second one is between the adult and the children versions of the national scales. Different methods from the equating practice of the educational testing field are explored: parametric, nonparametric, classical and based on the Item Response Theory (IRT).
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