Capacity Development in Nutrition Research in Balkans
Capacity Development in Nutrition Research in Balkans in last decade initiated creation of contemporary, harmonized Research Infrastructure (RI) compliant to European standards. One of the fundamentals of this RI is an innovative tool, DIET ASSESS & PLAN Advanced (DAP), a platform for standardized food consumption collection, comprehensive dietary intake assessment and nutrition planning.
- DAP - advanced dietary assessment software, is based on electronic versions of standard food consumption questionnaires, comprising of: 24-h dietary recalls (24HDR), Food Frequency Questionnaires (FFQ), Food Records (FR), and Food Propensity Questionnaires (FPQ). The software also includes a food photo atlas, and is able to record data on general and pre-screening information about subjects, anthropometric and biochemical parameters, blood pressure measurements, supplement intake and physical activity. The food composition elements have been created according to EuroFIR guidelines and the software allows the user to perform comprehensive calculations, combining data from external datasets such as FCDBs and nutrient recommendation datasets. It enables extensive evaluation of dietary intake on individual and/ or population group levels, dietary planning, foods design/reformulation, food labeling etc. It operates in English and other languages. Its unique architecture enables application of national food composition databases (FCDBs) from the European food composition exchange platform (30 national FCDBs) (http://www.eurofir.org/) and allows communication with other tools. EuroFIRTM thesaurus, LanguaLTM and EFSA FoodEX2 coding systems are integrated in DAP structure. DAP is developed in Microsoft VisualFoxPro and relies on two types of database: MySQL database for FCDBs and a local Microsoft VisualFoxPro database engine.
-
The software has been evaluated within EFSA project: “Dietary monitoring tools for risk assessment”, 2014, and further adopted for two new EFSA projects in Balkans: National Dietary Surveys in Compliance with the EU Menu methodology (sixth and seventh support): “The adults’ survey”, including subjects from 10 to 74 years old, 2017-2021 (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) and “The children’s survey”, including subjects from three months to 9 years old, 2017-2021/2018-2022 (Serbia, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro).
-
DAP - software structure fulfills the criteria for standardized food consumption data collection within EFSA’s pan-European dietary monitoring and risk assessment projects. Being a core element of public health nutrition RI in the Balkans, DAP promotes regional collaboration and harmonization of compilation and dissemination of reliable food data.