Review of Agency's nutrition research

Thursday 18 March 2010

A strategic review of the Agency's nutrition research and surveys portfolio has now been completed, following consultation with external stakeholders.

An independent panel of experts, chaired by Professor Mike Kelly, Public Health Centre Director at the National Centre of Clinical Excellence (NICE), considered the Agency's current portfolio of nutrition research and surveys.

The panel acknowledged the high quality and public health significance of the Agency’s nutrition research. It has made recommendations on how it should develop to continue to meet the Agency’s policy needs. The panel’s recommendations have been grouped into three themes: monitoring, informing dietary recommendations, and improving food choice, all of which were considered worthy of future investment and are unlikely to be adequately funded elsewhere.

The main points of the review include:

• Monitoring: The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) was singled out for specific credit, representing an ‘invaluable investment’. NDNS provides essential information on the dietary intake and nutritional status of the UK population, which underpins work across the Agency. The evidence it provides is also used extensively by stakeholders within the UK and internationally.
• Informing dietary recommendations: work should be focused on major diet-related public health issues that are relevant to the UK population. The current portfolio should be restructured from a group of individual programmes into an overarching framework considering the processes leading to nutrition-related disease.
• Improving food choice: there is an urgent need to identify effective interventions to promote behaviour change in different groups and settings, particularly nutritionally vulnerable groups such as young adults. The two existing food choice programmes should be amalgamated to give more flexibility in remit and scope.

The full review and the Agency's response to the panel's recommendations can be seen at the link below.