Dietary surveillance for states and communities

Information about dietary behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge is important for state and local health agencies because national monitoring lacks the local representativeness and timeliness necessary to catalyze community interest and to design, target, and evaluate dietary intervention programs. Cur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of clinical nutrition 1997-04, Vol.65 (4), p.1210S-1214S
Main Authors: Byers, T, Serdula, M, Kuester, S, Mendlein, J, Ballew, C, McPherson, RS
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Diet
Feeding. Feeding behavior
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Health Surveys
Humans
Male
Nutrition Surveys
Risk Factors
United States
Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems
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Summary:Information about dietary behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge is important for state and local health agencies because national monitoring lacks the local representativeness and timeliness necessary to catalyze community interest and to design, target, and evaluate dietary intervention programs. Currently, however, both methods and resources are limited for surveying diet in the population of a state or community. Brief assessments are included in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System for adolescents, which is conducted by state departments of education, and in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for adults, which is operated by state departments of health. More quantitatively precise measurements are being made by a few states and communities but personnel and financial resources for such surveys are limited. Nutritionists in state and local health agencies should explore the possibility of developing public-private partnerships with food producers, retailers, and marketers to collect information about dietary determinants and behaviors in states and communities. Better standardization of dietary assessment methods is needed, as is development of better methods to identify attitudes about diet and barriers to dietary improvement. Most important, though, dietary surveillance in states and communities must be more strongly tied to intervention programs intended to improve nutrition in those populations.
ISSN:0002-9165
1938-3207
DOI:10.1093/ajcn/65.4.1210S