Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

When estimating the prevalence of high, marginal, low, and very low food security in communities, researchers normally use four standard rank-ordered food security status levels. These are commonly grouped into high and low food insecurity, with high and marginal food security making one group and low and very low food security making the other. This paper suggests marginal should not be grouped with food secure based on new evidence using the four categories. Across our recent research, we have found differences in characteristics associated with food security status when using the four-level versus two-level food security status variable. Future studies should look separately at the four levels, or at least consider separating the marginal and high food secure groups. This paper discusses the implications of these findings on our broad understanding of the impact of food insecurity, arguing the negative impacts have been downplayed due to the established classification structure, where positive food secure data masks the negative impacts of marginal food security when combined.