title: Test-Retest Reliability of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey's 5-Item Food Insecurity Questionnaire Completed by Fourth-Grade Children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine test-retest reliability and internal consistency of a 5-item food insecurity questionnaire used in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
  
  
  METHODS
  Researchers administered NHANES's questionnaire in the classroom to 92 fourth-grade children (74 African American; 48 girls) in 2 sessions 27-30 days apart in spring, 2011. Each classroom administration lasted 5-10 minutes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Test-retest reliability was 0.66 (Kendall tau), which is modest. Internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) was .67 and .70 for respective administrations. Food insecurity scores were related to gender (adjusted P = .05) and academic achievement (adjusted P = .004) but not to socioeconomic status or body mass index percentile (binomial regression). On average, boys reported higher food insecurity than girls. Children with lower academic achievement scores reported higher food insecurity than children with higher academic achievement scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NHANES's 5-item questionnaire may be group administered to assess food insecurity efficiently as reported by individual fourth-grade children.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. Electronic address: sbaxter@mailbox.sc.edu.
authors.forename: Suzanne D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Baxter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH.
authors.forename: Albert F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Hitchcock
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
authors.forename: Kathleen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
authors.forename: Caroline H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Guinn
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC; South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office-Health and Demographics, Columbia, SC.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Finney
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC; South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office-Health and Demographics, Columbia, SC.
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Royer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.
authors.forename: Patricia H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013022:South Carolina; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*
keywords: children; food insecurity; test-retest reliability