Table 1.

Items in the short form Household Food Security Scale [4]. Figures are frequencies (column percent) except where stated.

Number	Designation	Question	Affirmative responses (531)	Item-score correlation	Estimated Thresholda (SE)	Item fit P value
3	'Balanced meal'	I/we couldn't afford to eat balanced meals Affirmative: Often or sometimes true	162 (31)	0.56	-2.027 (0.063)	<0.001
2	'Food last'	The food that I/we bought just didn't last, and I/we didn't have money to get more Affirmative: Often or sometimes true	109 (21)	0.73	-0.749 (0.072)	<0.001
5	'Skip meals'	In the last 12 months, since (date 12 months ago) did you (or other adults in your household) ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there wasn't enough money for food?	93 (18)	0.76	-0.252 (0.095)	0.026
8	'How often'	If YES, How often did this happen? Affirmative: Almost every month or Some months but not every month	70 (13)	0.61	0.476 (0.099)	<0.001
7	'Eat less'	In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn't enough money to buy food?	75 (14)	0.79	0.300 (0.108)	<0.001
10	'Hungry'	In the last 12 months, since (date 12 months ago) were you ever hungry but didn't eat because you couldn't afford enough food?	31 (6)	0.52	2.251 (0.116)	<0.001
	Cronbach's alpha			0.87b

^a under Rasch model convention thresholds are scaled so arithmetic mean is zero ^b Cronbach's alpha for six item scale