Development and Validity of a 2-Item Screen to Identify Families at Risk for Food Insecurity WHAT’S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: Food insecurity (FI) in the

United States is a public health problem. FI among young children is often invisible, because although young children who experience FI may experience negative health and developmental outcomes, their growth is often unaffected. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: Providers need efficient methods for identifying young children in food-insecure households to ensure that families have access to nutrition-related services that provide healthy food and alleviate caregiver stress. We present here a brief, sensitive, specific, and valid FI screen. OBJECTIVES: To develop a brief screen to identify families at risk for food insecurity (FI) and to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and con-vergent validity of the screen. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Caregivers of children (age: birth through 3 years) from 7 urban medical centers completed the US Department o