VITAL SIGNS OF HUNGER

Healthcare providers, social service providers, community-based outreach workers, teachers, and anyone who works with young children can use a newly developed Hunger Vital Sign to identify young children and families who may need assistance. The new tool Vital Sign measures families’ concerns about and access to food, much the way health care providers check other key vital signs, such as pulse and blood pressure. The two questions asked are: 

·    Within the past 12 months we worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more, and

·    Within the past 12 months the food we bought just didn’t last and we didn’t have money to get more.

 

Source: Children’s Health Watch, 5/16/14, Hunger Vital Sign