Women’s Dietary Diversity Score: Tajikistan embraces a new way to fight child malnutrition
Tajikistan is a country with a young population. Seven out of ten of its people are under the age of 30, and the country views this young and growing generation as an important asset to invest in for the future. In recent years, they have achieved signi
Qualitative global nutrition indicator helps Tajikistan monitor household diets and improve national nutrition. © FAO
With FAO’s technical support (and funding from the European Union), Tajikistan’s Agency of Statistics and Ministry of Health implemented a dietary assessment pilot survey in the Khatlon region, under the project “Strengthening of the National food security information system in Tajikistan”. The objective was to produce data informing the Agency on the variety and quality of local diets, with respect to World Health Organization recommendations. The main focus of the project is the introduction of the Women’s Dietary Diversity Score, a simple qualitative global nutrition indicator which counts the number of food groups consumed by a person within a period of 24 hours.
The indicator focuses on women because, given their special nutritional needs (in particular mothers and would-be mothers) and special role in family nutrition (women statistically prioritize the food needs of their family members before satisfying their own), if women’s high nutritional needs are met, it implies with a high degree of certainty that the nutritional needs of the other family members are also satisfied. The idea behind this data collection is that it would show what foods people are eating more of, and which are being consumed less. The objective of the exercise is to integrate a nutrition component into the annual Household Budget Survey.
“I think this dietary diversity study will help us understand issues at household level,” said Professor Azonov, at the Nutrition Institute of Tajikistan. “It will contribute to further prevention of malnutrition, and to the improvement of the nutrition situation in Tajikistan.”