Project

Improving standards and methods for capturing wild foods & neglected and underutilized species (NUS) in dietary surveys

Code
42N05620
Duration
18 December 2020 → 30 June 2022
Funding
International funding: global institutions
Promotor
Research disciplines
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Public health nutrition
  • Agricultural and food sciences
    • Agricultural plant production not elsewhere classified
Keywords
Agriculture-nutrition Linkages nutrition Agrobiodiversity Biodiversity Wild Edible Plants agro-food science
 
Project description

In low-resource settings, dietary assessment methods that generate simple indicators such as the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W) that provide information on diet diversity, a key aspect of diet quality, can be adapted include the assessment of wild foods’ and NUS’ contributions to diets of women of reproductive age.  This can, in turn inform programming and policy decisions towards improving their nutrition status, such as the promotion of production, marketing and consumption of certain foods. This project will (i) create an impact pathway that leads to sustainable consumption of wild, neglected and underutilized species (NUS) for desired nutrition and health outcomes, (ii) Conduct a literature review for dietary assessments on wild and NUS food, including methods used, (iii) carry-out analysis of multi-country datasets for wild and NUS and (iv) develop a guidance document on standards and methods to capture wild foods/NUS in dietary surveys, based on literature reviewed and lessons learnt from the multi-country datasets analysed.