The Challenge of Measuring Hunger
There is widespread interest in the number of hungry people in the world and trends in hunger. Current global counts rely on combining each country's total food balance with information on distribution patterns from household consumption expen...
Main Authors: | , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/01/18741920/challenge-measuring-hunger http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16814 |
Summary: | There is widespread interest in the
number of hungry people in the world and trends in hunger.
Current global counts rely on combining each country's
total food balance with information on distribution patterns
from household consumption expenditure surveys. Recent
research has advocated for calculating hunger numbers
directly from these same surveys. For either approach,
embedded in this effort are a number of important details
about how household surveys are designed and how these data
are then used. Using a survey experiment in Tanzania, this
study finds great fragility in hunger counts stemming from
alternative survey designs. As a consequence, comparable and
valid hunger numbers will be lacking until more effort is
made to either harmonize survey designs or better understand
the consequences of survey design variation. |
---|