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Published on: September 18, 2018
Monitoring and benchmarking population diet quality globally: a step-wise approach
S Vandevijvere1, C Monteiro, S M Krebs-Smith
1School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Summary
Monitoring population diet quality globally requires robust data. This study proposes a framework using food balance sheets, household surveys, and intake surveys to assess diet health and identify areas for improvement in food environments.
Area of Science:
- Nutrition Science
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Global food environments significantly impact population diets and non-communicable disease (NCD) risk.
- Effective monitoring of population diet quality is crucial for understanding these impacts and informing public health interventions.
- The International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) initiative seeks to benchmark global food environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review and assess existing data sources for monitoring population diet quality globally.
- To propose a step-wise framework for monitoring population diet quality across different countries and over time.
- To identify key indicators and methods for evaluating the healthiness of diets in relation to food environments.
Main Methods:
- Systematic review of data sources including food balance sheets (FBaS), household budget and expenditure surveys (HBES), and food intake surveys.
- Development of a tiered framework ('minimal', 'expanded', 'optimal') for diet quality monitoring.
- Evaluation of the strengths and limitations of each data source and proposed monitoring approach.
- Consideration of pre-defined diet quality indices for scoring diets.
Main Results:
- FBaS provide national food and energy availability trends (minimal approach).
- HBES and food intake surveys can measure the proportion of ultra-processed products, indicating energy-dense, nutrient-poor diets (expanded and optimal approaches).
- Several diet quality indices are suitable for application across the proposed monitoring approaches.
Conclusions:
- A multi-method framework using FBaS, HBES, and food intake surveys can effectively monitor population diet quality globally.
- Measuring ultra-processed product consumption is a key indicator for assessing diet quality.
- Further development of data collection methods and diet quality indicators is needed to enhance global monitoring efforts.
