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Prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population

3-year average – FAO
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Agricultural Production

What you should know about this indicator

Item: Prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population (percent) (3-year average) Description: The prevalence of severe food insecurity is an estimate of the percentage of people in the population who live in households classified as severely food insecure. The assessment is conducted using data collected with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale or a compatible experience-based food security measurement questionnaire (such as the HFSSM). The probability to be food insecure is estimated using the one-parameter logistic Item Response Theory model (the Rasch model) and thresholds for classification are made cross country comparable by calibrating the metrics obtained in each country against the FIES global reference scale, maintained by FAO. The threshold to classify "severe" food insecurity corresponds to the severity associated with the item "having not eaten for an entire day" on the global FIES scale. In simpler terms, a household is classified as severely food insecure when at least one adult in the household has reported to have been exposed, at times during the year, to several of the most severe experiences described in the FIES questions, such as to have been forced to reduce the quantity of the food, to have skipped meals, having gone hungry, or having to go for a whole day without eating because of a lack of money or other resources. It is an indicator of lack of food access.

Metric: Value

Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 14, 2024
Next expected update
March 2025
Date range
2015–2021
Unit
percent

Related research and writing

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How is food insecurity measured?

Hannah Ritchie

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The Suite of Food Security Indicators presents the core set of food security indicators.

Following the recommendation of experts gathered in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) Round Table on hunger measurement, hosted at FAO headquarters in September 2011, an initial set of indicators aiming to capture various aspects of food insecurity is presented here. The choice of the indicators has been informed by expert judgment and the availability of data with sufficient coverage to enable comparisons across regions and over time.

Many of these indicators are produced and published elsewhere by FAO and other international organizations. They are reported here in a single database with the aim of building a wide food security information system. More indicators will be added to this set as more data will become available.

Indicators are classified along the four dimensions of food security -- availability, access, utilization and stability.

Retrieved on
March 14, 2024
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Food Security and Nutrition: Suite of Food Security Indicators (2023).

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Citations

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“Data Page: Prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Agricultural Production”. Data adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-severe-food-insecurity [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population – FAO – 3-year average” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Food Security and Nutrition: Suite of Food Security Indicators” [original data]. Retrieved July 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-severe-food-insecurity