Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Tier 3 — Observational / field trialPeer-reviewed

Dietary diversity score as indicator of nutrient adequacy

Kennedy, G. et al.

2010

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Summary

This paper by Kennedy et al., published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2010, evaluates the utility of dietary diversity scores as low-cost, practical proxies for assessing micronutrient adequacy at the population level. The study likely draws on dietary recall or food frequency data to correlate diversity metrics with nutrient intake adequacy across multiple micronutrients. It contributes methodological evidence supporting the use of dietary diversity as a monitoring tool in nutrition surveillance and food security assessments, particularly in low- and middle-income country contexts.

UK applicability

This research is primarily orientated towards nutrition monitoring in resource-limited international settings, though its methodological insights on dietary diversity metrics are relevant to UK public health surveillance and dietary assessment frameworks, including efforts to monitor diet quality across socioeconomic groups.

Key measures

Dietary diversity score (DDS); probability of adequate micronutrient intake; mean adequacy ratio (MAR); food group counts

Outcomes reported

The study examined the relationship between dietary diversity scores and micronutrient adequacy, assessing whether simple diversity metrics can reliably predict the probability of adequate micronutrient intake across population groups.

Theme
Nutrition & health
Subject
Dietary assessment & micronutrient intake
Study type
Research
Study design
Observational cohort
Source type
Peer-reviewed study
Status
Published
Geography
International
System type
Human dietary assessment
Catalogue ID
XL0535

Topic tags

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