Development of Food Literacy Assessment Tool Targeting Adults With Low Income

Objective: Develop and test validity and reliability of the Food Literacy Assessment Tool (FLitT) in adults with low income.

Design: Face validity was tested using cognitive interviews, content validity using expert review, and internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability based on 2 administrations of the survey.

Setting: Urban choice food pantry in Cincinnati, OH.

Participants: There were 10 and 98 adults with low income for the cognitive interview and survey, respectively VARIABLES MEASURED: Knowledge, self-efficacy, and behavior required to plan and manage, select, prepare, and eat in relation to food.

Analysis: Cronbach α and Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 for internal consistency reliability and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for test-retest reliability.

Results: Cognitive interviews and expert feedback suggested modifications to improve the clarity of FLitT and offer more response options. Testing shows acceptable internal consistency in self-efficacy (Cronbach α = 0.92) and behavior (Cronbach α = 0.90) but not in knowledge (Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 = 0.51). The FLitT shows acceptable test-retest reliability for knowledge (ICC = 0.84), self-efficacy (ICC = 0.70), and behavior (ICC = 0.93).

Conclusions and implications: The FLitT was developed and tested for face and content validity and internal and test-retest reliability in adults with low income. Additional research is needed to conduct a second round of face validity and test construct validity using factor analysis with a larger size.