Monitoring upstream determinants of dietary health to increase action on nutrition: The INFORMAS initiative

Abstract

Abstract Background Efforts for tracking malnutrition in all its forms are increasing. The World Health Organization conducts regular surveys among Member States on implementation of policies to prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) through online databases and interactive maps. However, there are critical gaps. One of the main factors contributing to unhealthy diets is unhealthy food environments. Food environments are the collective physical, economic, policy and sociocultural surroundings, opportunities and conditions that influence people’s food habits and nutritional status. Methods The International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) was founded in 2013 and developed a new framework to monitor and benchmark the healthiness of food environments and policies in a standardized way internationally. The framework consists of 7 modules covering different aspects of food environments (e.g. food composition, labelling, marketing, provision) and two tools (focused on policies and business impact) to measure the extent of implementation of priority recommendations to improve food environments by governments and the private sector. Results To date about 30 countries implemented one or several modules or tools of the INFORMAS framework. INFORMAS has conducted several multicountry comparisons and has developed a blueprint country profile for measuring progress on creating healthy food environments. The proposed country profile aims to supplement similar efforts by the Global Burden of Disease in monitoring health risk factors and outcomes. Conclusions This monitoring fills a gap in the available evidence regarding food environments and policies internationally. Monitoring the healthiness of food environments using key indicators is important to strengthen accountability of governments and food companies, and evaluate the impact of their policies.