FAO and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy work together to increase access to nutrition data

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy (the Friedman School) at Tufts University have entered into a collaboration aiming to increase our understanding of what foods and nutrients people are actually consuming around the world. Many policy and programme makers still rely, today, on data related to the availability of food at national level (i.e. food supply data) or at household level (i.e. household survey data). Providing governments and policymakers access to high-quality, timely and comprehensive food security and nutrition analyses is essential to encourage formulation of policies based on current and reliable scientific evidence and to achieving the results of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 and FAO Strategic Objective 1. The collaboration between FAO and the Friedman School will facilitate the sharing and exchange of data and resources to support the development of two publicly available multipurpose global databases, ultimately providing stakeholders, including policymakers, researchers, and clinicians with access to valuable information on individual food consumption.

 

 

FAO has a key mandate to collect, analyze, interpret, and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture. In support of this mandate, FAO, the World Health Organization and other international partners are developing the FAO/WHO GIFT (Global Individual Food Consumption Data Tool). This tool will collect, harmonize and make publicly available microdata on individual food consumption, and compute specific indicators on nutrition, food safety and environmental impact of food consumption at national and subnational levels all over the world through a FAO hosted web-platform. Levels of consumption of most food and nutrients across the world, and particularly among specific population subgroups, have been virtually unknown. To address this gap, the Friedman School’s Global Dietary Database compiles information on food and nutrient consumption levels in countries worldwide. Begun in 2008, it is a large, collaborative, ongoing global project that collects, validates, and disseminates data on 55 dietary indicators of major foods and nutrients for children and adults by age, sex, pregnancy/nursing status, rural vs. urban residence, and level of education. As a result, more than 15 studies have been published investigating the relationships between dietary factors and disease through the lifespan and evaluating diet-related health policies around the world. The work is led by Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School, supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Founded in 1981, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy is the only independent school of nutrition in the United States. The School’s programs – which focus on questions relating to nutrition and chronic diseases, molecular nutrition, agriculture and sustainability, food security, humanitarian assistance, public health nutrition, and food policy and economics – are renowned for the application of scientific research to national and international policy.