Estimating Food Consumption and Poverty Indices with Mobile Phone Data

TL;DR

This study evaluates the potential of mobile phone data as a real-time proxy for food security indicators, demonstrating high correlation with traditional survey measures in a nationwide analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a method to use mobile phone data as an alternative to household surveys for monitoring food security in low and middle income countries.

Findings

High correlation (> .8) between mobile data indicators and food security variables

Mobile phone data can serve as a timely proxy for food consumption and poverty indices

Potential for real-time monitoring of food security in resource-limited settings

Abstract

Recent studies have shown the value of mobile phone data to tackle problems related to economic development and humanitarian action. In this research, we assess the suitability of indicators derived from mobile phone data as a proxy for food security indicators. We compare the measures extracted from call detail records and airtime credit purchases to the results of a nationwide household survey conducted at the same time. Results show high correlations (> .8) between mobile phone data derived indicators and several relevant food security variables such as expenditure on food or vegetable consumption. This correspondence suggests that, in the future, proxies derived from mobile phone data could be used to provide valuable up-to-date operational information on food security throughout low and middle income countries.