Hunger and Obesity Understanding a Food Insecurity Paradigm: Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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12 Research Methods and Measures
12 Research Methods and Measures
Pages 161-176
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From page 161... ...
As moderator Amy Yaroch noted, these methods and measures encompass such topics as measurement development, qualitative approaches, and the use of technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS)
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Food security can be divided into four categories: high food security, marginal food security, low food security, and very low food security. Most people include marginal food secure with low and very low food security.
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For biochemical markers 16 14.7 Food insecurity 14 Very low food security Percentage of Households 12 10 8.6 8 5.7 6 4 3.3 2 0.95 NA 0 0 Any time Any time during Estimated during year 30 days prior to survey average daily FIGURE 12-1 The prevalence of food insecurity can depend on the length of time over which it is measured.
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Responses to individual questions on the food insecurity scale tend to vary with the level of food insecurity and shed light on the specific types of behaviors characteristic of each range (Figure 12-2)
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, which will collect information on what households are actually buying and bringing home from the store along with information on food security and weight status. COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH Alexandra Adams, associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine and director of the Collaborative Center for Health Equity at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, works with 11 tribes in Wisconsin, including the Menominee Nation, Bad River Nation, Lac du Flambeau tribe, and Oneida tribes, as well as the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council.
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Many things outside the home were not under their control, so they used the inside of the home as a way to control their lives. Barriers to Healthful Lifestyles The focus group members mentioned many barriers: • Lack of resources • Lack of places for children to play • Lack of ways to obtain fruits and vegetables • Safety issues, including loose dogs and trouble caused by teenagers • Shift work, which can be disruptive to schedules • An open household structure, so that the number of people who need to be fed varies When parents were worried about safety, they might keep their children indoors but give them free rein inside the house.
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"People get used to buying lower-quality foods at grocery stores that really don't provide higher-quality foods, so they don't feel that they're food insecure." Photovoice as a Data Collection Method The final study Adams described is the Youth Defining Health Study, which was done in conjunction with an American Indian graduate student who is also a professional photographer. He taught 22 students in a summer
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They had not seen that or understood that or realized that kids were doing that." Understanding how communities respond to such findings is an important part of understanding food insecurity, said Adams, whether in urban or rural areas. This was a very labor-intensive project, said Adams, but having the cameras home on weekends allowed the taking of photographs that could not be taken any other ways, such as the contents of freezers.
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Smith has conducted both interviews and focus groups on food insecurity and obesity with children and adults. For sensitive information, Smith prefers interviewing.
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When encountering different cultural perceptions regarding weight loss, the challenge, she said, is "walking that fine line in a culturally appropriate manner." SPATIAL DATA AND SPATIAL METHODS GIS and global positioning system (GPS) technologies are tools, and like any tools they could be replaced in 5 years by new technologies, said Amy Hillier, assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design.
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"You wouldn't believe just how many of these cigarette ads are out in the poor communities in Philadelphia." Human-Environment Interactions Another sophisticated example of the use of spatial data involves capturing how people interact with their environments. Maps of how people move within their communities made with GPS technologies can reveal some of the decisions they make related to food insecurity and obesity.
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Yet it also can be a rich source of information about accessing services and products in the community, whether WIC supplements, food banks, or healthcare services. For example, the MANNA Food Bank in Philadelphia distributes thousands of meals to people throughout the Delaware Valley.
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. In turn, food insecurity, nested within the larger context of poverty, provides a context that translates the influences of poverty into a mutually reinforcing cycle of excess weight gain and poor health outcomes through physiological, behavioral, and psycho-social-cultural mechanisms.
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is considering funding research in this area, although NIH traditionally has funded obesity prevention research rather than food insecurity research. Adams added that many researchers could be doing research on food insecurity and obesity as part of their current projects by adding additional data or analysis to 2See http://www.GapMinder.org (accessed November 18, 2010)
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Adams reported that sharing the photographs with the tribal elders in her study achieved that end by revealing how children viewed food and what they wanted to do in the community. "It was done for the community, within the community, to help understand those issues." In response to a question about whether taking photographs can be used in intervention programs, Adams noted that her study was designed to get a broad sense of the foods people have in their homes.
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