(OR01-06-23) The Use of Population Pyramids To Assess Vulnerable Populations With Sub-optimal Dietary Intake

Objectives: The global increase in computational capacities and information technologies amplifies the successes in assessing and modeling dietary intakes at a granular level. Yet, aggregating individual measures into mean intakes limits the ability to detect vulnerable populations consuming diets outside certain thresholds and overlooks variations in age-sex distributions that differ across countries. We proposed to explore global diet-age-sex distributions of suboptimal intake and examine how population structures influence the disparities in suboptimal dietary intakes using dashboard visual analytics and quantitative methods.

Methods: We merged country-specific age-sex population structure data collected by United Nations with the published inadequate intake prevalence assembled by researchers from Harvard University. We calculated the age-sex-specific proportions of people below and over predefined thresholds for dietary intakes and created diet-age-sex population pyramid plots presenting the prevalence of inadequate intake across age groups and genders. For demonstration purposes, we focused on iron intake in 10 select countries in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, with a medium to very high Human Development Index.

Results: Our findings indicate that countries often lacked intake records for children ( < 10 years old). We detected substantial disparities in the proportion of people with sub-optimal iron intake, especially for adults ( >20 years old). For example, in the constrictive population structure of Belgium and Portugal, inadequate iron intake was most noted in younger females. While in the expansive population structure of Mexico and Brazil, the proportion of females with sub-optimal iron intake was the largest of the most dominant age-specific subpopulations. The diet-age-sex population pyramids demonstrate high coverage of iron intake in China for all age groups and over time and a very high prevalence of inadequacy ( >90%) among Laos’ teens.

Conclusions: Combining demographic and dietary data offers insights into the distribution of suboptimal intake in vulnerable populations. Interactive data dashboards enabling diet-age-sex population pyramids will help researchers and policymakers design strategies for targeted interventions considering the dynamic nature of the demographic structure.

Funding Sources: None