Hjelm Lisa, Mathiassen Astrid, Wadhwa Amit
1 United Nations World Food Programme Headquarters, Rome, Italy.
2 Statistics Norway, Oslo, Norway.
Food Nutr Bull. 2016 Sep;37(3):275-289. doi: 10.1177/0379572116653509. Epub 2016 Jul 8.
Poverty and food insecurity are intrinsically linked as poor households often lack the resources required to access sufficient nutritious food to live an active and healthy life. Consumption and expenditure surveys are typically used to identify poor versus nonpoor households but are detailed and costly. Measures of wealth based on asset ownership and housing characteristics can be generated from lighter, less costly surveys.
To examine whether indices based on asset ownership and housing characteristics (stock) complement household consumption (flow) when used to analyze inequalities in food security outcomes.
Comprehensive data from Nepal, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Madagascar are used to examine correlations and overlaps in classification between indices of household wealth and consumption per capita. Inequality in food security indicators representing quantity, quality, and vulnerability is examined across wealth and consumption per capita quintiles.
Wealth indices are correlated with consumption per capita, with coefficients between 0.5 and 0.6. The prevalence of food insecurity decreases from poorer to wealthier quintiles for all variables and for all food security measures in all countries. Energy deficiency varies much more across consumption quintiles than wealth index quintiles. Interestingly, inequalities in the share of consumption of food are more pronounced across the wealth index quintiles than per capita consumption.
Although wealth indices and consumption per capita are related and both are drivers of food security, they cannot be used interchangeably for food security analysis. Each inequality measure is important for describing different aspects of food security.
贫困与粮食不安全有着内在联系，因为贫困家庭往往缺乏获取足够营养食物以过上积极健康生活所需的资源。消费和支出调查通常用于识别贫困家庭与非贫困家庭，但此类调查详细且成本高昂。基于资产所有权和住房特征的财富衡量指标可通过更简便、成本更低的调查得出。
探讨基于资产所有权和住房特征（存量）的指数在用于分析粮食安全结果的不平等情况时，是否能补充家庭消费（流量）情况。
利用来自尼泊尔、马拉维、坦桑尼亚、乌干达和马达加斯加的综合数据，研究家庭财富指数与人均消费在分类方面的相关性和重叠情况。在人均财富和消费的五分位数范围内，考察代表数量、质量和脆弱性的粮食安全指标的不平等情况。
财富指数与人均消费相关，系数在0.5至0.6之间。在所有国家，所有变量和所有粮食安全衡量指标下，粮食不安全的发生率从较贫困的五分位数到较富裕者逐渐降低。能量不足在消费五分位数间的变化幅度远大于财富指数五分位数间的变化幅度。有趣的是，粮食消费份额的不平等在财富指数五分位数间比在人均消费间更为明显。
尽管财富指数和人均消费相关，且二者都是粮食安全的驱动因素，但在粮食安全分析中它们不能相互替代。每种不平等衡量指标对于描述粮食安全的不同方面都很重要。
