Principles for effective surveys of hunger and malnutrition in the United States

To be effective, the information derived from a survey must be used to make decisions that affect policies and programs. This paper discusses why scientifically sound surveys may not be effective and vice versa. Effectiveness depends on the information being relevant to the decision-maker's understanding of the problem to be solved. To the extent that science contributes to both understanding the problem and providing the information for a decision, the survey will be scientific and effective. The measurement of malnutrition and barriers to communication are not at present the major obstacles to effective scientific surveys relative to hunger and malnutrition in the United States. Rather, the obstacles seem to be poor scientific conceptualization and measurement of hunger, on the one hand, and poor sampling techniques for malnutrition, on the other hand. These frontiers of knowledge have implications for science and policy beyond surveys. The challenge for the American Institute of Nutrition is to recruit the scientific skills need to understand hunger and identify pockets of malnutrition and their causes--scientific skills that go beyond those traditionally associated with nutrition research.