TY - JOUR
T1 - Validity of an abbreviated Individual Water Insecurity Experiences (IWISE-4) Scale for measuring the prevalence of water insecurity in low-and middle-income countries
AU - Bethancourt, Hilary J.
AU - Frongillo, Edward A.
AU - Young, Sera L.
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Carnegie Corporation; the support of the American people provided to the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) through the United States Agency for International Development Cooperative Agreement AID-OAA-L-14-00006; and Northwestern University, including from the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, the Global Poverty Research Lab, Weinberg College, the Office for Research, Leslie and Mac McQuown via the Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience, Global Health Studies, and the Center for Water Research. We are also grateful to the HWISE-Research Collaborative Network community for their intellectual vibrancy and Gallup Poll for their support throughout data collection and analysis. Finally, we would like to acknowledge Joshua Miller and Godfred Boateng for their review of an earlier draft of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - The 12-item Water Insecurity Experiences Scales provide high resolution, cross-context equivalent data on household and individual water insecurity. A 4-item, 1-minute version of the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE-4) Scale has proven useful for understanding the prevalence of household water insecurity experiences when limited resources preclude the use of the HWISE-12 Scale. Herein, we tested the validity of an analogous four-item version of the Individual Water Insecurity Experiences Scale (IWISE-4) for measuring the prevalence of individual water insecurity when limited resources prevent implementation of the IWISE-12 Scale. We used data from adults in 31 low-and middle-income countries (n=43,970) to assess internal consistency, cross-country equivalence, predictive accuracy, and construct validity of the IWISE-4. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the IWISE-4 (range 0–12) predicted individual water insecurity with ≥95% accuracy in every country. An IWISE-4 cut-point of ≥4 provided the closest approximation of water insecurity prevalence as predicted by the IWISE-12 scale (cut-point ≥12), correctly classifying 87.1–98.5% of adults across countries, and was similarly associated with water quality dissatisfaction, a measure of construct validity. Although the IWISE-4 Scale cannot measure the severity of water insecurity, the IWISE-4 provides suitable and cross-country equivalent estimates of the prevalence of individual water insecurity.
AB - The 12-item Water Insecurity Experiences Scales provide high resolution, cross-context equivalent data on household and individual water insecurity. A 4-item, 1-minute version of the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE-4) Scale has proven useful for understanding the prevalence of household water insecurity experiences when limited resources preclude the use of the HWISE-12 Scale. Herein, we tested the validity of an analogous four-item version of the Individual Water Insecurity Experiences Scale (IWISE-4) for measuring the prevalence of individual water insecurity when limited resources prevent implementation of the IWISE-12 Scale. We used data from adults in 31 low-and middle-income countries (n=43,970) to assess internal consistency, cross-country equivalence, predictive accuracy, and construct validity of the IWISE-4. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the IWISE-4 (range 0–12) predicted individual water insecurity with ≥95% accuracy in every country. An IWISE-4 cut-point of ≥4 provided the closest approximation of water insecurity prevalence as predicted by the IWISE-12 scale (cut-point ≥12), correctly classifying 87.1–98.5% of adults across countries, and was similarly associated with water quality dissatisfaction, a measure of construct validity. Although the IWISE-4 Scale cannot measure the severity of water insecurity, the IWISE-4 provides suitable and cross-country equivalent estimates of the prevalence of individual water insecurity.
KW - indicator
KW - measurement
KW - prevalence
KW - scale
KW - validation
KW - water security
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U2 - 10.2166/washdev.2022.094
DO - 10.2166/washdev.2022.094
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85139854275
SN - 2043-9083
VL - 12
SP - 647
EP - 658
JO - Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development
JF - Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development
IS - 9
ER -
