ECLS-K 1998-99 Food Security Status File
Technical Documentation and User Notes
Data File and Documentation Prepared by
Mark Nord
Economic Research Service
United States Department of Agriculture
January 26, 2001
Revision history of this document:
January 26, 2001--original creation of document
February 8, 2001-- revised
Background
The ECLS-K Food Security Status Data File (hereafter Food Security Status File) contains summary food
security status information for households of children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study,
Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). The summary food security status variables are based on
responses to the 18 food security questions (the food security core module), which were collected in
interviews of the children’s parents in spring 1999 survey (Spring 2). The food security interview data
were accessed from the ECLS-K Child Data File (NCES 2001-029) to create the Food Security Status
File, which matches to the Child Data File by CHILDID.
The Food Security Status File contains only the food security summary variables and CHILDID variable.
It is intended to be used in conjunction with the ECLS-K Child, Teacher, and School files, which contain
extensive information on children and their schools and families. These data files, along with full
documentation and other information on the study are available from the National Center for Education
Statistics. For access information, go to the NCES website: http://nces.ed.gov.
Technical Description
The Food Security Status File is an ASCII file containing 21,260 records. The length of each record is 16
characters. The data dictionary is included below as Appendix A. SAS code to read the ASCII data file
and create a SAS file is included as Appendix B. Frequency tabulations of each of the three food security
status variables are included as Appendix C. SAS code to create the food security composite variables
directly from the ECLS-K Child Data File is in Appendix D.
Matching to the ECLS-K 1998-99 Child Data File
The Food Security Status Fi