Global Dietary Database 2017: data availability and gaps on 54 major foods, beverages and nutrients among 5.6 million children and adults from 1220 surveys worldwide

Abstract

BackgroundWe aimed to systematically identify, standardise and disseminate individual-level dietary intake surveys from up to 207 countries for 54 foods, beverages and nutrients, including subnational intakes by age, sex, education and urban/rural residence, from 1980 to 2015.MethodsBetween 2008–2011 and 2014–2020, the Global Dietary Database (GDD) project systematically searched for surveys assessing individual-level intake worldwide. We prioritised nationally or subnationally representative surveys using 24-hour recalls, Food-Frequency Questionnaires or short standardised questionnaires. Data were retrieved from websites or corresponding members as individual-level food group microdata or aggregate stratum-level data. Standardisation included quality assessment; data cleaning; categorising of foods and nutrients and their units; aggregation by demographic strata and energy adjustment.ResultsWe standardised and incorporated 1220 surveys into the final GDD 2017 database, together represented 188 countries and 99.0% of the world’s population in 2015. 72.1% were nationally, 17.0% subnationally, and 10.9% community-level representative. 41.2% used Food-Frequency Questionnaires; 23.4%, 24-hour recalls; 15.8%, Demographic Health Survey questionnaires; 13.1%, biomarkers and 6.4%, household surveys. 73.9% of surveys included data on children; 52.2%, by urban and rural residence; and 30.2%, by education. Most surveys were in high-income countries, followed by sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Most commonly ascertained foods were fruits (N=803 surveys), non-starchy vegetables (N=787) and sugar-sweetened beverages (N=440); and nutrients, sodium (N=343), energy (N=256), calcium (N=224) and fibre (N=200). Least available data were on iodine, vitamin A, plant protein, selenium, added sugar and animal protein.ConclusionsThis systematic search, retrieval and standardised effort provides the most comprehensive empirical evidence on dietary intakes across and within countries worldwide.

Micronutrient supply from global marine fisheries under climate change and overfishing

“…26 However, accounting for both the bioavailability and the estimated intake of micronutrients, from marine and terrestrial sources, remains essential to tackling hidden hunger, 2,27 especially as global individual-level dietary intake data become increasingly available. 28 Countries such as Japan, Bulgaria, and North Korea have moderate to high (30%, 34%, and 82%, respectively) prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intake (Figure 4), but their catches have very low micronutrient densities (Figures 2 and 4), suggesting limited potential for domestic fisheries to help close nutrient gaps. Moreover, high variability in micronutrient density (associated with low evenness) may jeopardize the stability of nutritional contribution from fish catches over time because a small number of species, which are not caught in every year, make a disproportionate contribution, especially for countries where prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intake is moderate to high, such as Georgia, Bulgaria, and Mauritania (Figure 4).…”

Global agricultural trade and land system sustainability: Implications for ecosystem carbon storage, biodiversity, and human nutrition

“…Increasingly available global data on nutrient availability will be a crucial input for advancing this field. 130,131 At the same time, more research is needed to understand in what settings trade is fostering or speeding up a transition toward unhealthy Western dietary patterns. 132 A better understanding of the impacts of trade on nutrient availability for exporting systems will be important, considering the increasing importance of large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South.…”

Analysis of feature influence on Covid-19 Death Rate Per Country Using a Novel Orthogonalization Technique

“…It is also very uniform, although we have 72 features related to calcium, the top 2 collect 96% of the importance. The data is taken from the Global Dietary Database, GDD (38). All the calcium features from GDD are highly correlated with each other.…”

“…We have noticed that all features of GDD-calcium are highly correlated, so it is not surprising to see some variation of the best one. The calcium data is taken from the Global Dietary Database (38).…”