School of Business and David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Apr 3;17(7):2434. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17072434.
High levels of food insecurity signal the presence of disparities and inequities in local food access, which have been shown to negatively impact the health and well-being of individuals and communities. However, the approaches used to define and measure high food insecurity, also known as a "food desert", vary widely across research study and intervention methodology. This paper describes the development and validation of a measurement tool called the "Food Abundance Index" (FAI) which is a scorecard for assessing levels of food insecurity across five key dimensions: access, diversity, quality, density, and affordability. A pilot study was conducted to examine levels of food insecurity in order to test the extent to which the FAI can detect food deserts. Nine neighborhoods were selected based on the demographic characteristics of communities shown to be related to food insecurity. Our findings provide evidence that the Food Abundance Index provides a robust measurement tool to assess the extent of food insecurity within a community or neighborhood. Thus, this multidimensional scorecard can be used in future research to detect levels of food insecurity within urban areas and help to bridge the gap between academics, policymakers and practitioners in this important area.
高水平的粮食不安全表明当地粮食获取方面存在差异和不平等，这已被证明会对个人和社区的健康和福祉产生负面影响。然而，用于定义和衡量高粮食不安全（也称为“粮食荒漠”）的方法在研究和干预方法学中差异很大。本文介绍了一种名为“粮食充足指数”（FAI）的测量工具的开发和验证，该工具是一个记分卡，用于评估五个关键维度的粮食不安全程度：获取、多样性、质量、密度和可负担性。进行了一项试点研究，以检查粮食不安全的程度，以测试 FAI 检测粮食荒漠的程度。根据与粮食不安全相关的社区的人口特征选择了九个社区。我们的研究结果表明，粮食充足指数提供了一个强大的测量工具，用于评估社区或社区内粮食不安全的程度。因此，这种多维记分卡可用于未来的研究，以检测城市地区的粮食不安全程度，并有助于缩小学术界、政策制定者和实践者在这一重要领域的差距。
