Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC.
Adv Nutr. 2019 Sep 1;10(5):864-875. doi: 10.1093/advances/nmz008.
Adequate and safe water is critical in promoting all 3 pillars of food security. Hence, ensuring availability of water for all is one of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To monitor progress of this goal and understand the role of water in addressing food insecurity, development of a household-level water insecurity scale has become very critical. As such, using the following concept of water insecurity: inconsistent access to sufficient amount of safe and clean water for active and healthy life, several scale development studies have been conducted to measure water insecurity experiences at the household level. Hence, in this review, the science literature was evaluated to 1) describe the scale development process; 2) assess the validity results by comparing scale measurements results with the established 4 United Nations (UN) water standards on water access; and 3) examine key water- and food-related dimensions covered by the scales in measuring water insecurity at the household level. Eight published studies were identified from the following scientific databases: EBSCO, PubMed, Google Scholar, and JSTOR. Five of the 8 selected studies were conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, 2 were conducted in North and South America, and 1 was conducted in South Asia. A majority of the studies were conducted with women and included preliminary qualitative/ethnographic phases to identify scale items. Of the 4 UN water standards, the amount of water used/stored was commonly used to test the scale results. However, no consistent results were found in its association with water insecurity. In a rural setting, distance to water source was positively associated with water insecurity. Psychosocial distress/anxiety and reduced water use for hygiene were key dimensions of scale in all the studies. Rigorous research is needed to establish various levels of water insecurity, its scoring scheme, and its association with daily intake of water-an essential nutrient.
充足和安全的水对于促进粮食安全的三大支柱至关重要。因此，确保所有人都能获得水是 2030 年可持续发展目标之一。为了监测这一目标的进展情况，并了解水在解决粮食不安全方面的作用，开发一种家庭层面的水不安全衡量标准变得非常关键。因此，基于以下水不安全概念：无法稳定获得足够数量的安全和清洁水以维持积极和健康的生活，已经进行了几项规模发展研究，以衡量家庭层面的水不安全体验。因此，在本次综述中，评估了科学文献，以 1）描述规模发展过程；2）通过将规模测量结果与联合国（UN）关于用水获取的 4 项既定标准进行比较来评估有效性结果；3）研究衡量家庭层面水不安全的规模所涵盖的关键水和粮食相关维度。从以下科学数据库中确定了 8 项已发表的研究：EBSCO、PubMed、Google Scholar 和 JSTOR。在这 8 项研究中，有 5 项是在撒哈拉以南非洲进行的，2 项是在北美和南美进行的，1 项是在南亚进行的。大多数研究都是针对妇女进行的，其中包括初步的定性/民族志阶段，以确定量表项目。在联合国的 4 项用水标准中，常用用水量/储水量来检验量表结果。然而，没有发现其与水不安全之间存在一致的关联。在农村地区，到水源的距离与水不安全呈正相关。心理困扰/焦虑和减少用于卫生的用水量是所有研究中量表的关键维度。需要进行严格的研究，以确定各种级别的水不安全、其评分方案以及与日常水分摄入的关系，水分是一种必需的营养物质。
