Household food security status measured by the US-Household Food Security/Hunger Survey Module (US-FSSM) is in line with coping strategy indicators found in urban and rural Indonesia

The food security assessment used by the United State's Food Security/Hunger Survey Module (US- FSSM) was used in five studies: these were in two urban and four rural areas in Indonesia between February 2004- August 2005. The number of households assessed was 3,704 and consisted of 45% urban and 55% rural. All households had children below five years. This paper aims to assess the applicability of US-FSSM for measuring household food-insecurity in Indonesia. Common coping-strategies discussed are to borrow money from the family, get an additional job, to lessen portion size of food, and to sell small assets. Although households in urban and rural areas were similar in size/number of children and male headed; the urban households were more income-secure, educated, and had better access to electrical appliances. A majority of the households was food-insecure (77% and 84% in urban and rural consecutively). More food-insecure households without and with hunger were found in rural areas. The number of affirmative responses to 17 out of 18 questions in the USFSSM was more in the rural households, showing less fortunate cases of food-insecurity. For a given coping strategy, as food-security status becomes more severe, the higher the percentage of households employing it. For a given food-security status, percentage of households was higher among lower-degree and less among higher-degree coping. Combining food-security and coping-strategy indicators may help to identify transient-food-secure households. Observing both indicators throughout different time of the year continuously may further identify adaptive mechanism by chronic-food-insecure households. Information on household food diversity could enrich findings on dietary intake modification, hence moving from food-security to nutrition-security.