• the applicability of the current measure of the prevalence of food insecurity with hunger for assessing the effectiveness of USDA food assistance programs, in connection with the Government Performance Results Act performance goals for the Food and Nutrition Service;

• future directions to consider for strengthening measures of hunger prevalence for monitoring, evaluation, and related research purposes.

In Phase 2 of the study the panel will consider in more depth the issues raised in the workshop relating to the concepts and methods used to measure food security and make recommendations as appropriate. In addition, the panel will address and make recommendations on:

• the content of the 18 items and the set of food security scales based on them currently used by USDA to measure food insecurity;

• how best to incorporate and represent information about food security of both adults and children at the household level;

• how best to incorporate information on food insecurity in prevalence measures;

• needs and priorities for developing separate, tailored food security scales for population subgroups, for example, households versus individuals, all individuals versus children, and the general population versus homeless persons;

• future directions to consider for strengthening measures of food insecurity prevalence for monitoring, evaluation, and related research purposes throughout the national nutrition monitoring system.

This report addresses the panel’s mandate for Phase 1 only and provides the panel’s preliminary assessment of the food security measure and interim guidance for the continued production of the food security estimates. A final report with the panel’s conclusions and recommendations also will be prepared.