The Global Diet Quality Project, a collaboration between management consultant company Gallup, the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), collects data from the general adult population around the world, with the aim of providing tools for national and international monitoring of diet quality.
It says the website, which holds data from 56 countries as well as ready-to-use tools for data collection and analysis, highlights areas deserving of focus, such as identifying where dietary patterns may be a driver for non-communicable diseases. It plans to add data from 37 more countries over the next two years.
Diet quality tools housed on website ‘are a game-changer’
The project has created a data collection tool – the Diet Quality Questionnaire (DQQ) – that enables countries to analyse both the adequacy of diets and consumption patterns related to non-communicable diseases.
The DQQ has been adapted for 117 countries, with versions aimed at adults as well as infants and young children, plus translations into multiple languages to enhance accessibility. Results from more countries and additional questionnaires will be uploaded in the coming months as they become available.
Anna Herforth, principal investigator for the Global Diet Quality Project at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said: “The tools housed on the website are a game-changer because they enable diet quality monitoring, which has not been done in most countries until now.
“The DQQ only takes five minutes to complete, and the indicators are simple to calculate, providing timely information for addressing a major cause of malnutrition in all its forms.”
First database to outline minimum dietary diversity for women
The website is the first database outlining minimum dietary diversity for women, an indicator of micronutrient adequacy for females aged between 15 and 49 years. It also includes new indicators of dietary factors related to non-communicable diseases that can be disaggregated by urban-rural status and gender.
In addition, it features a calculator that can be used to calculate indicators of diet quality based on data collected using the DQQ.
Gina Kennedy, senior technical specialist at GAIN, added: “Dietquality.org is a knowledge-packed website with rich resources to enable primary data collection on diet as well as demonstration of country-level diet quality results. The website is a one-stop platform for learning more about diet quality around the world.
“The DQQ is a user-friendly tool. You don’t have to be a nutrition expert to use the questionnaire in your own surveys.”
Database represents ‘almost three-quarters of the world’s population’
The launch follows last year’s publication of the report “Measuring What the World Eats”, which highlighted the first tranche of diet quality data from 2021.
The unveiling of 2022 figures demonstrates how rapidly results can be made available. The data is presented in user-friendly visuals that can be used to inform decision-makers at all levels, from global bodies to national and regional authorities.
Andrew Rzepa, partner at Gallup, added: “The Global Diet Quality Project was conceived to bring visibility, accountability, and understanding of what the world eats. With this latest launch of publicly available data, we now have coverage for over 55 countries, representing almost three-quarters of the world’s population.
“We call upon researchers and policymakers to use this trove of data to support interventions and policies that lead to good nutrition, improved public health and wellbeing.”
