DIETARY SURVEILLANCE FOR STATES AND COMMUNITIES

Information about dietary behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge is impor tant for state and local health agencies because national monitoring l acks the local representativeness and timeliness necessary to catalyze community interest and to design, target, and evaluate dietary interv ention programs. Currently, however, both methods and resources are li mited for surveying diet in the population of a state or community. Br ief assessments are included in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance S ystem for adolescents, which is conducted by state departments of educ ation, and in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for adult s, which is operated by state departments of health. More quantitative ly precise measurements are being made by a few stales and communities but personnel and financial resources for such surveys are limited. N utritionists in state and local health agencies should explore the pos sibility of developing public-private partnerships with food producers , retailers, and marketers to collect information about dietary determ inants and behaviors in states and communities. Better standardization of dietary assessment methods is needed, asis development of better m ethods to identify attitudes about diet and barriers to dietary improv ement. Most important, though, dietary surveillance in stales and comm unities must be more strongly tied to intervention programs intended t o improve nutrition in those populations.