Psychometric Validation of the 10-Item USDA Food Security Scale for Use with College Students

Food insecurity is defined as inadequate access to food due to limited resources. Studies regarding college student food insecurity have shown consistently higher rates than the rest of the nation. Many of these studies measure food insecurity using the United States Department of Agriculture's Adult Food Security Survey Module. Despite its prevalence, the module has not been evaluated for use with the college student population. This study uses Rasch analysis, which underlies the current food insecurity classification approach used by the Department of Agriculture, to investigate the Adult Food Security Survey Module's psychometric properties. A sample of 511 students from a public university in the South was used. Findings indicate that the requirements of the Rasch model do not hold for the module with college students. Specifically, the requirements of equal item discrimination and unidimensionality were violated, along with the presence of moderate to large differential item functioning.