Properties of the Household Food Security Survey Module Scale in Young Adults with Diabetes

Abstract

Background: The Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) was not tailored to people with chronic diseases or young adults (YAs).

Objectives: We aim to evaluate whether the 18-item HFSSM meets assumptions underlying the scale among YAs with diabetes.

Methods: Data from 1887 YAs with youth-onset type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes were used from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study, 2016-2019, and on 925 who returned for the SEARCH Food Security Cohort Study, 2018-2021, all of whom had completed the HFSSM. Guttman scaling properties (affirmation of preceding less severe items) and Rasch model properties (probability to answer an item based on difficulty level) were assessed.

Results: Items 3 (balanced meals) and 6 (eating less than one should) were affirmed more frequently than expected (nonmonotonic response pattern). At 1.2%-3.5%, item nonresponse was rare among type 1 diabetes but higher among type 2 diabetes (range: 3.1%-10.6%). Items 9 (not eating the whole day) and 3 did not meet the Guttman scaling properties. Rasch modeling revealed that item 3 had the smallest difficulty parameter. INFIT indices suggested that some responses to item 3 did not match the pattern in the rest of the sample. Classifying household food insecurity (HFI) based on items 1 and 2 compared with other 2-item combinations, including item 3, revealed a substantial undercount of HFI ranging from 5% to 8% points.

Conclusions: Use of the HFSSM among YAs with diabetes could potentially result in biased HFI reporting and affect estimates of HFI prevalence in this population.

Keywords: diabetes mellitus; household food security; scale properties; screening; young adults.