Assessment of the Reliability and Relevance of the Food Data Collected in National Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys

Food consumption data are collected in most countries through a variety of household surveys. The primary objective of these surveys is usually to measure poverty, to derive consumption patterns needed for the calculation of consumer price indices, or to provide input to the compilation of national accounts. Increasingly, these data are re-purposed and used to calculate food security indicators, to compile food balance sheets, to plan and monitor food-based nutrition interventions, to serve information needs of the private sector, and for other research work. What makes a survey dataset “fit for purpose” is specific to each one of these particular uses. In this report, we propose a method to assess the reliability and relevance of survey questions, which we apply to 100 household surveys from low- and middleincome countries. This report is thus based on a desk review of survey questionnaires and methods, not on an assessment of the data themselves.