Objective: To provide an overview of the household dietary diversity score and the food consumption score, two indicators used for food security assessment and surveillance, and compare their performance in food security assessments in three countries. Design: Cross-sectional cluster sampling design using an interview-administered structured questionnaire on household food security, including household-level food group consumption measured over 1 d and 7 d. Setting: Survey data are from Burkina Faso, Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and northern Uganda. Subjects: Households in Burkina Faso (n 3640), Lao PDR (n 3913) and northern Uganda (n 1956). Results: Spearman's correlation coefficients between the scores were 0?73 in Burkina Faso, 0?65 in Lao PDR and 0?53 in northern Uganda. Prevalence-adjusted kappa coefficients showed substantial strength of agreement in two countries. The proportion of agreement between the two scores ranged from 85 % in Lao PDR to 65 % in northern Uganda. Dietary profiles based on food group consumption using score tertiles were comparable. Rankings of the most foodinsecure areas within a country corresponded well in northern Uganda and Burkina Faso but not in Lao PDR. Both indicators showed moderate correlations with other proxy measures of food security. Conclusions: The comparative study highlights the similarities and differences between the food consumption and household dietary diversity scores. Similar classification of the most food-insecure areas within sub-national levels was obtained. The choice of indicator for food security assessment and surveillance will vary depending on user needs. Keywords Household food security Household food access Dietary diversity Food consumptionMany organizations involved in food security assessments use qualitative instead of quantitative measures of dietary intake. Quantitative dietary assessment techniques use data collected primarily at individual level to calculate dietary energy and nutrient intakes, which are then compared with nutrient requirements. Quantitative dietary survey methods are difficult to implement, particularly in developing countries, due to cost, logistics and other considerations such as respondent burden (1) . Qualitative measures of household food consumption, such as dietary diversity and food consumption scores, are attractive as the information required for their construction is less time-consuming and costly to collect than that for quantitative dietary intake methods.Both the FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) use information on dietary diversity as one element to inform food security analysis; however, the organizations use different data collection methods and analytical strategies (2)(3)(4) . The FAO uses a 1 d household dietary diversity score (HDDS) based on guidelines produced by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project (5) and the WFP uses a food consumption score (FCS). Both the HDDS and the FCS have been validated in different countries as proxy measures of household per ca...

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