Seasonality in associations between dietary diversity scores and nutrient adequacy ratios among pregnant women in rural Malawi – a cross-sectional study
Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Swedish Nutrition Foundation
Abstract
Background: Dietary diversity scores (DDS) are simple indicators often used as proxies for nutrient adequacy.
A 10-food group indicator is proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as
a global standard for measuring dietary diversity among women in low-resource settings. However, its validity
as a proxy for nutrient adequacy across different agricultural seasons for pregnant women has not been
determined.
Objective: We studied associations between DDS and nutrient adequacy ratios (NAR) across two different
agricultural seasons (pre- and post-harvest seasons) for pregnant women in rural Malawi and assessed whether
a 1-day DDS or a 3-day DDS would be the best indicator of nutrient adequacy.
Design: Dietary intakes of 330 pregnant women were assessed between gestational weeks 28 and 35. Intakes of
energy, macronutrients, and 11 micronutrients were estimated using three repeated interactive 24-h diet recalls,
and DDS were also calculated from these days. Correlation coefficients (r) between DDS, NAR, and mean
adequacy ratio (MAR) of the 11 micronutrients were determined.
Results: After energy adjustments, we found significant correlations between DDS and MAR with both DDS
indicators in the preharvest season (r = 0.22–0.23; p < 0.001) but not in the post-harvest season (p > 0.05). For
individual energy-adjusted NARs, correlations were not consistently significant across the two seasons and
the two DDS indicators.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that DDS could be used to predict overall nutrient adequacy during the
preharvest season. As similar correlations were found using both the 1- and 3-day indicators, we recommend
using a 1-day DDS, for simplicity. However, as the indicators are sensitive to seasonality they should be used
with care in this study setting.
Description
CITATION: Hjertholm, K. G., et al. 2019. Seasonality in associations between dietary diversity scores and nutrient adequacy ratios among pregnant women in rural Malawi – a cross-sectional study.
Food and Nutrition Research, 63:2712, doi:10.29219/fnr.v63.2712.
The original publication is available at https://foodandnutritionresearch.net/index.php/fnr
The original publication is available at https://foodandnutritionresearch.net/index.php/fnr
Keywords
Dietary diversity score -- Malawi, Nutrition -- Requirements -- Seasonal variations -- Malawi, Pregnant women -- Nutrition -- Malawi
Citation
Hjertholm, K. G., et al. 2019. Seasonality in associations between dietary diversity scores and nutrient adequacy ratios among pregnant women in rural Malawi – a cross-sectional study.
Food and Nutrition Research, 63:2712, doi:10.29219/fnr.v63.2712