PMID- 23193777
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20121220
LR  - 20220408
IS  - 0379-5721 (Print)
IS  - 0379-5721 (Linking)
VI  - 33
IP  - 3 Suppl
DP  - 2012 Sep
TI  - Still waiting for Godot? Improving Household Consumption and Expenditures Surveys 
      (HCES) to enable more evidence-based nutrition policies.
PG  - S242-51
AB  - BACKGROUND: The constrained evidence base of food and nutrition policy-making 
      compromises nutrition programs. Nutrition policy-making must do better than 
      relying exclusively on Food and Agriculture Organization Food Balance Sheets. The 
      strategy of relying on observed-weighed food record or 24-hour recall surveys has 
      not proven practical either; they remain few in number, generally not nationally 
      representative, and of dubious external validity. Although Household Consumption 
      and Expenditures Surveys (HCES) have shortcomings, they are increasingly being 
      used to address this information gap. OBJECTIVE: To promote dialog within the 
      nutrition community, and between it and the greater community of HCES 
      stakeholders, in order to identify their shared agenda and develop a strategy to 
      improve HCES for analyzing food and nutrition issues. METHODS: The diverse 
      origins and objectives of HCES are described, the evolution of their use in 
      addressing food and nutrition issues is traced, and their shortcomings are 
      identified. RESULTS: The causes, relative importance, some potential solutions, 
      and the strategic implications of three distinct categories of shortcomings are 
      discussed. Elements of a possible approach and process for strengthening the 
      surveys are outlined, including identifying best practices, developing guidelines 
      and more rigorously analyzing the tradeoffs involved in common, key survey design 
      and implementation decisions. CONCLUSIONS: To date, the nutrition community's 
      role in most HCES has been as a passive user of secondary data. The nutrition 
      community must become more involved in the design, implementation, and analysis 
      of HCES by identifying criteria for prioritizing countries, establishing 
      assessment criteria, applying the criteria in retrospective assessments, 
      identifying key shortcomings, and recommending alternatives to ameliorate the 
      shortcomings. Several trends suggest that this is a propitious time for improving 
      the relevance and reliability of HCES.
FAU - Fiedler, John L
AU  - Fiedler JL
AD  - HarvestPlus, IFPRI, 2033 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA. 
      j.fiedler@cgiar.org
FAU - Carletto, Calogero
AU  - Carletto C
FAU - Dupriez, Olivier
AU  - Dupriez O
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Review
PL  - United States
TA  - Food Nutr Bull
JT  - Food and nutrition bulletin
JID - 7906418
SB  - IM
MH  - *Diet Surveys
MH  - *Energy Intake
MH  - *Energy Metabolism
MH  - Evidence-Based Practice
MH  - Family Characteristics
MH  - Feeding Behavior
MH  - Food, Fortified
MH  - Guidelines as Topic
MH  - *Health Promotion
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Nutrition Policy
MH  - Nutritional Status
MH  - *Policy Making
MH  - Reproducibility of Results
MH  - Retrospective Studies
EDAT- 2012/12/01 06:00
MHDA- 2012/12/21 06:00
CRDT- 2012/12/01 06:00
PHST- 2012/12/01 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2012/12/01 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2012/12/21 06:00 [medline]
AID - 10.1177/15648265120333S214 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Food Nutr Bull. 2012 Sep;33(3 Suppl):S242-51. doi: 10.1177/15648265120333S214.