• About the Study
• Methodology
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  • Client Survey
  • Response Rates
  • Analysis Methods
    • Tables
    • Other Considerations
  • Reporting Conventions
  • Degree of Comparability
  • Number of A2H Clients Served
• Key Findings
• Who We Serve
• How We Serve
• Local Picture
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• Media Center

Tables (3.6.1)

In the descriptive tabulations of clients presented in chapters 5 through 9, the percentage figures in the tables are based on the total weighted number of usable responses to the client survey, unless specified otherwise. Responses are weighted to represent clients or households of all emergency food programs in the A2H Network. In general, weights are based on the inverse probabilities of selection in the sampling and also account for survey nonresponse. 1 Weights were scaled so that the final weights represent a month-level count of different clients, as derived in Chapter 4 of the national report. 2

Similarly, all tables containing information obtained from the agency survey, as presented in chapters 10 through 14, are based on the weighted total number of usable responses to the agency survey, unless specified otherwise. The descriptive tabulations in these chapters represent all A2H emergency food programs. The weights, calculated based on the sampling frame, also account for survey nonresponse.

Percentage distributions in the client tables are presented by the type of the programs where clients were interviewed (pantries, kitchens, or shelters). When appropriate, the percentage distribution for “all clients” is shown in the last column. Most tabulations of the agency data are presented by the type of programs operated by the agencies.

The percentages in the tables are rounded to one decimal place and are based only on the valid responses. They exclude missing, “don’t know,” refusal, and other responses deemed incomplete for the question.

The sample sizes presented at the bottom of single-panel tables (or at the bottom of each panel of multipanel tables) reflect the total number of responses to the question (unweighted). Where the question relates to a subset of the respondents, the appropriate sample size is presented. In general, these sample sizes include missing responses, as well as “don’t know” and refusal responses. We report the percentages of item nonresponse in notes to each table.

The main reason for including only valid responses is to present appropriately the weighted percentage distribution among the main response categories of interest. Our preliminary analysis of item nonresponse revealed little evidence of any systematic biases, and excluding missing data also has the advantage of being consistent with the convention used for previous studies commissioned by A2H.
Some tables also present the average (mean) or the median values associated with the variable of interest. The average, a measure of central tendency for continuous variables, is calculated as the weighted sum of all valid values in a distribution, divided by the weighted number of valid responses. The median is another measure of central tendency. It is the value that exactly divides an ordered frequency distribution into equal halves. Therefore, 50% of the weighted number of valid responses have values smaller than the median, and the other 50% have values larger. The median is suitable only for describing central tendency in distributions where the categories of the variable can be ordered, as from lowest to highest.

1 To reduce variances in the analysis, we truncated weights with extremely large values. However, to keep the sum of weights unchanged, we then adjusted the weights by an adjustment factor, which is the ratio of the sum of the original weights to the sum of the truncated weights.

2 Originally, we computed weights to make the sample representative at the weekly level. We later converted them to a monthly scale to take into account the fact that, compared with kitchen and shelter users, most pantry users do not visit the program in any given week.