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Researchers, community organizations, and Inuit leaders increasingly question the suitability of methods to assess the prevalence of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland in Canada). Particularly contentious is the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). The HFSSM is applied in modified form as part of Health Canada's nationwide Canadian Community Health (CCHS) and Aboriginal Peoples Surveys. The 18-question HFSSM is the primary survey tool used by the Government of Canada to assess food security prevalence. Yet the HFSSM asks only about the affordability of store-bought foods (also termed "market foods" elsewhere in the literature) when collecting data to designate food security status. This is despite communities in Inuit Nunangat having complex dual or mixed food systems, that is, they rely on foods harvested from ancestral lands (country foods) in combination with store-bought foods to sustain mixed cash-subsistence economies and diets. Sourcing country foods requires money for the purchase of equipment and machinery. However, country foods also have numerous access and availability criteria dictated by non-financial factors. In this paper, we explore the problem of the monetary bias (the focus on an individual or household's ability to purchase foods) in the HFSSM and discuss the knock-on effects of using monetary metrics as the sole means of measuring and monitoring food security in dual food environments. We contend that relying on monetary access as a measure presents an incomplete picture of the reality of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat. Presently, there is little consideration of the nuance of social norms and cultural values that govern dual food systems or the importance of less tangible, non-financial factors that might affect food access (e.g., knowledge of where and how to harvest and of machine maintenance, suitable environmental conditions for travel, conducive harvest regulations, social relationships, ecological stability). Ultimately, this contributes to restricted policy-level understandings of what it means to ensure stable, culturally adequate, and just food systems, and limits self-determination in northern food environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, food security survey modules have been widely used to assess Inuit food access. However, these modules were not originally designed for use in mixed economies where both purchased and country (hunted, fished, and gathered) foods contribute to peoples' diets. These methods have been extensively tested and modified for use in Alaska, but research conducted in the Canadian Arctic has not been rigorously evaluated. This paper examines the validity of a modified version of the commonly used USDA Household Food Security Survey Module for assessing the food security of Inuit households in Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik. The data come from 110 household surveys that were collected as part of an extended ethnographic project in the community. Rasch modeling of the food security module results indicates that, even with modifications that make reference to country food, the module assesses only the dimension of food security related to material wealth. Household income is a contributing factor for country food access, because it is important for access to harvesting equipment; however, other factors related to country food harvesting may affect the reliability of some food security module questions. Consequently, studies that assess Inuit food access using only standard survey modules may misrepresent how Inuit experience food insecurity, which is a serious concern given the current food crisis among Inuit in Canada. Assessment tools that provide reliable and valid assessments of country food access, specifically including traditional knowledge and social support networks, need to be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]