World Food Policy Volume/Issue 2-2/3-1 Fall 2015/Spring 2016 | Page 26

Food Security in Rural Cambodia and Fishing in the Mekong in the Light of Declining Fish Stocks

The Household Food Insecurity Access used in the survey). The adjustment of
Scale
the recall period was necessary to keep
the questionnaire as short as possible
The household food insecurity access and to avoid asking similar questions
scale HFIAS is computed following twice. Furthermore, instead of asking
the methodology laid out by USAID separately for occurrence and frequency
(Coates, Swindale, and Bilinsky 2007). we combined both things in one question.
The indicator measures household food
To construct the frequency-ofinsecurity access as a continuous score. occurrence we multiply the number of
Normally it has a recall period of 1 month. days reported for each question in the
It is based on a set of nine questions which worst week by four to proxy for the worst
first ask about the occurrence of food month and code these frequencies into
insecurity events (Did your family not three categories: 1—rarely (0–2 days
have enough to eat?) and in a second step per month), 2— sometimes (3–10 times
about the frequency of their occurrence per month), and 3—often (>10 times
(How often did you family not have per month).The result is a frequency of
enough to eat?). Adjusting the index to occurrence score for each question in
account for site specific characteristics, each household in the range of 0–3. These
we used nine questions and asked frequencies of occurrence scores are then
respondents to answer the questions for added up across all questions for each
the worst week in the past year (see Table household, resulting in the HFIAS for the
A1 for list of questions and exact wording household.

Table A1 HFIAS questions asked in the questionnaire
No.

For the worst week between 05/13 and 04/14 please indicate the
number of days that your household experienced the following:

1

… you worried that the household would not have enough food?

2

… you were not able to eat the kinds of food you preferred?

3

… you ate a limited variety of foods?

4

… you ate some foods you really did not want to eat?

5

… you ate a smaller meal than you felt you needed?

6

… you ate fewer meals in a day?

7

… there was not food of any kind in the household?

8

… you went a whole day and night without eating?

9

… you went to sleep at night hungry?

26