OBJECTIVE Despite the alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity, epidemiologic studies that prospectively examine the fruit and vegetable consumption and other lifestyle factors in relation to weight gain (WG) are still insufficient. We explored the associations between fruit and vegetable intake and WG over a 10-year period in an adult Mediterranean population. METHODS AND PROCEDURES We...

Background and Objectives: One of the data sources for monitoring the progress towards Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is household surveys such as Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and health Survey (DHS).  This study was conducted to assess the implementation of these surveys in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) to evaluate the exp...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the effects of socioeconomic, regional, and ethnic conditions on chronic malnutrition in four Andean countries of South America: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. METHODS The study was based on Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for Colombia (1995), Peru (1996), and Bolivia (1997), and on a Living Standard Measurement Survey for Ecuador (1998). We developed an index...

BACKGROUND Health literacy is of increasing importance in public health research. It is a necessary pre-condition for the involvement in decisions about health and health care and related to health outcomes. Knowledge about limited health literacy in different age groups is crucial to better target public health interventions for subgroups of the population. However, little is known about healt...

This paper examines the underlying economic and socio-demographic determinants of child nutritional status in Egypt using data from the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey. The Height for Age Z-score (HAZ) is used as a measurement of child growth assessment. We contribute to the extant literature by using a quantile regression model to allow for a heterogeneous effect of each determinant along d...

Whole grain foods have been associated with health benefits, yet are underconsumed by youth compared to recommendations. This study evaluated impacts of a school-based curriculum among children in grades 3-5 address barriers intake (2018-2019) (n = 1,748). Surveys before and after the program indicated were more willing try better able identify whole foods. Open-ended responses confirmed findin...

Socioeconomic factors affect choice of diet, that is, dietary fiber intake. Underreporting of food consumption in diet surveys has been reported higher in low-income, low-education groups compared to high-income, high-education groups. This paper examines in a socioeconomic homogenous low-income low-education group of females the relation between dietary fiber intake and overweight and scrutini...