Azmal Hossan, Ph.D. student and Graduate Teaching Assistant, is part of an interdisciplinary research team supported by the Twenty-Five Years of Food Security Measurement Program funded by the USDA Economic Research Service. The team’s first manuscript from their project “Developing a Disaster Food Security Scale” has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ special issue covering papers from all of the funded projects. Read “A Mixed-Methods Approach to the Development of a Disaster Food Security Framework” here, and learn more about the USDA program here.
Using a mixed-methods approach, Hossan’s team developed and validated a Disaster Food Security Framework (DFSF) and developed a definition of Disaster Food Security (DFS). In doing so, they critically evaluated the existing food security measurement scales and definitions (e.g., FAO, USDA) and identified that current metrics and definitions provide no guidance on dimensions of food insecurity within disaster settings. To fill this gap, the team took climate change-induced disasters (hurricanes and tornadoes) and public health disasters (COVID-19 pandemic) into consideration. They collected qualitative data through in-depth interviews to develop the DFSF and define DFS, survey data from experts to validate the framework, and survey data from representative samples to test the robustness of the framework and its dimensions. The DFSF will be used in the development of a disaster-specific food security scale, and the scale will then be used in monitoring and surveillance programs as climate-related disasters and public health emergencies become more common.