(OR01-04-23) Overcoming the Diet Data Gap: New Evidence From 56 Countries Demonstrate a Global Monitoring System for Diets

Objectives: Diet is central to health and well-being. Poor diet and malnutrition are the main drivers of ill health and premature mortality, with negative spillover effects on the environment and economy. Monitoring diet quality globally is important for accountability to nutrition, health, and global development goals. The objective of this research is to show the results of a diet quality survey across countries globally, and how it can be used for nutrition surveillance or monitoring systems.

Methods: The Diet Quality Questionnaire (DQQ) is a novel country-adapted survey module that captures food group consumption for 29 food groups. These food groups were selected for their use in a suite of diet quality indicators for monitoring nutrient adequacy and protection against noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Indicators include minimum dietary diversity for women (MDD-W), an indicator of nutrient adequacy for women aged 15-49; the Global Dietary Recommendations score, an indicator of adherence to WHO healthy diet recommendations; and All-5, an indicator of consumption of five commonly recommended food groups in national food-based dietary guidelines. The DQQ was implemented in the Gallup World Poll in nationally-representative samples in 56 countries in 2022-2023. Data were disaggregated by gender and urbanicity, and analyzed by income.

Results: The data collected represent more than two-thirds of the global population. Most people in most countries are not consuming diets that minimally adhere to dietary guidelines, because they lack key food groups recommended for daily consumption. In many countries most women are not eating the diverse diets they need, increasing their risk of micronutrient deficiencies and related health issues. Populations that consume more healthy foods also tend to consume more foods associated with increased risk of NCDs; men and urban residents are more likely to consume unhealthy foods. Higher income levels do not guarantee healthy diets.

Conclusions: These results demonstrate that data for monitoring diet quality indicators can be collected across countries feasibly in multi-topic surveys. The DQQ can be implemented with minimal training and cost in countries’ own food and nutrition surveillance systems for insights at subnational level.

Funding Sources: SDC, The Rockefeller Foundation, EU & BMZ via GIZ, USAID, Government of Canada