Food and Nutrition Monitoring and Surveillance

Overall Objective: To improve access for decision-makers to the best quality information about the food and nutrition situation in NSW, relevant to state-wide and Area Health Service priorities.

Food and nutrition ‘monitoring and surveillance’ relates to watching over aspects of the food and nutrition situation (food supply, food habits and dietary intakes) and how these are changing over time, in order to identify need for action. Most states and territories in Australia collect information about the health of their populations, allowing them to plan and refine policies and services.

Monitoring and surveillance in NSW

The NSW Health Department has a very active and successful health survey program that guarantees core health information will be collected on a regular repeat basis.

Monitoring and surveillance at the national level

There is currently no national unit monitoring the food and nutrition situation in Australia on a regular basis. A previous unity – The Australia Food and Nutrition Monitoring Unit – was disbanded in 2002 (see below). The last national nutrition survey was in 1995; some nutrition data were also collected as part of the National Health Survey in 2001. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects some data on a irregular basis.

However, the Commonwealth Government has renewed interest in monitoring nutrition of the Australian population and recently commissioned a business case for national food and nutrition monitoring (see below). Several surveys are now planned. The 2007 Commonwealth Department of Health & Ageing budget has committed funding over four years for a national nutrition and physical activity survey ‘Healthy Active Australia’. The Commonwealth is also funding a national nutrition and physical activity survey in children that is currently underway. Another survey aims to collect data on infant feeding and breastfeeding (see below).

The Cluster has considerable expertise in the area of food and nutrition monitoring and surveillance, and plays a key advisory role to state and national health departments in deciding on priorities and optimising methods to measure, analyse, and report on, population food habits.

The Cluster also compiles data from various food and nutrition surveys, and undertakes further analysis of the NSW Health Survey datasets, to produce reports on the food and nutrition situation in NSW. The data and recommendations of these reports are used to identify areas of need and to improve the way policies and programs are planned, targeted and implemented.

Good for Kids, Good for Life (2007+)

A large community based intervention project funded by NSW Health and based in the Hunter New England Area Health Service, aimed at reducing the prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents. The Centres for Prevention Research have a supporting role in this project; CPHN provides advice on dietary assessment tools, evaluation, analyses and interpretation of the dietary data. Previous validation projects and two in progress will provide useful input into the interpretation of the dietary data.

Update of AFNMU document on monitoring of breastfeeding in Australia (2007)

Debra Hector was involved in reviewing the recommendations made in 2001: Towards a national system for monitoring breastfeeding in Australia: Recommendations for population indictors, definitions and next steps. There has been considerable experience gained in monitoring breastfeeding at the population level in NSW and Queensland since this review. Also, recommendations concerning the duration of exclusive breastfeeding were changed since the review (NHMRC 2003). Recommendations will be made to the Commonwealth Government for their intended monitoring of breastfeeding at the national level.

Business Case for a National food and Nutrition Monitoring and Surveillance System (2006)

A compelling business case (link to report) has been developed by Karen Webb and a team of consultants from various Universities, for funding a system of routine data collection on the food and nutrition situation in Australia, in response to a request by the Commonwealth Department of Health & Ageing.

Recommendations for short questions on food habits and nutrition for NSW Health Surveys (2005)

Vicki Flood, Karen Webb and Anna Rangan compiled a report to NSW Health with recommended core survey questions for on-going use in the NSW Child Health Survey, and in other state health surveys of children (link to report). A number of related projects have been/are being undertaken to study the validity of survey questions. The validation studies using the CAPS study, the 1995 National Nutrition Survey, and the Tasmanian Dietary Key indicator study, were used to inform the selection of survey questions.

Data sources for food and nutrition monitoring in NSW and guidelines for preparing special issue monitoring reports:

Background paper (2001) (Link to Monitoring Publications)

Recommendations for developing a system for monitoring and surveillance of food and nutrition in NSW (2000)

(Link to Monitoring Publications)

Recommendations for field workers for monitoring overweight and obesity in NSW (2000)

(Link to Monitoring Publications)

The Australian Food and Nutrition Monitoring Unit (AFNMU) (1997-2002)

This unit was funded from 1997-2002 by the Commonwealth Department of Aged Care, to a consortium of Universities (Queensland, Sydney, Deakin) to prepare technological reports and recommendations, policy studies and reports on the food and nutrition situation in Australia (www.sph.uq.edu.au/Divisions/nutrition/monitoring/Unit.htm).

Overweight and obesity, breastfeeding, fruit and vegetable consumption are key action areas under Eat Well NSW: NSW Health’s Strategic Directions for Public Health Nutrition 2003-2007. The centre has produced a number of reports in relation to these priority areas.

Breastfeeding

Two reports on the infant feeding data have been compiled to date. The most recent one reports on data collected during 2003-2004 in the NSW Health Survey. A previous report was on data collected from the 2001 NSW Child Health Survey (prior to the continuous survey). Further reporting will be from data collected during 2005-2006, and these data will enable an examination of trends in breastfeeding practices in NSW in recent years, as well as serving as a benchmark for the NSW Health Breastfeeding Policy (http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/pd/2006/PD2006_012.html).

Reports:
Breastfeeding in New South Wales: New South Wales Population Health Survey 2003-2004 (2005) (Authors: Frances Garden, Deb Hector, Margo Eyeson-Annan, Karen Webb) (Link to Breastfeeding Publications)

Report on Breastfeeding in NSW: 2004 (2004) – data from the 2001 NSW Child Health Survey (Authors: Deb Hector, Sharon Lymer, Karen Webb) (Link to Breastfeeding Publications)

Obesity

A report was produced by the Centre in 2003 which included an assembly of information on the extent of the problem of overweight and obesity in NSW. It also indicated the health, social and economic consequences of the problem, as well as what is known about factors that contribute to the problem, and prevailing services and programs to address the problem in NSW. The report provided and argument for the need to invest resources and stimulate action to tackle the problem of overweight and obesity in NSW in a more considered and co-ordinated manner. The report also helped identify key target groups as well as key behaviours and features of the environment which need to be considered when taking action.

Report:
Report on the Weight Status of NSW: 2003 (Authors: Tim Gill, Liz Story, Karen Webb) (Link to Healthy Weight Publications)

Fruit and Vegetables

The 2003 report on consumption of vegetables and fruit in NSW identified key indicators of the intake of F&V in the NSW population from prevailing data sources: it included the health consequences and behavioural and environmental factors contributing to low intakes; it identified groups that are at particular risk of low consumption of F&V; it provided an overview of the current consumption of F&V in the NSW population. it identified gaps in the availability and quality of data available for monitoring intakes of F&V; it also demonstrated the importance of monitoring F&V in the planning and evaluation of interventions to address the problem of inadequate consumption.

Report:
Report on the consumption of vegetables and fruit in NSW: 2003 (2003) (Link to Fruit & Vegetables Publications)

(Authors: Vicki Flood, Deb Hector, Liz Story)

Food and Nutrition Catalogue

A catalogue of data describing the food and nutrition situation in NSW was compiled to provide easy access to a wide range of existing information about the food system and the nutritional status of the population in NSW, particularly for health and nutrition service planners and policy makes. The catalogue:

• Uses the food and nutrition system and current population nutritional goals as the basis for selecting, evaluating and interpreting data about food and nutrition;
• Presents selected results of relevant nutritional studies and surveys;
• Gives and overview of data available and identifies some of the strengths and limitations of each source;
• Presents data that are pertinent to people in NSW and local areas;
• Interprets data from a nutritional perspective; and
• Includes data about the food and nutrition system as a whole, including the supply side and nutritional status of the population

Report:
Food and nutrition in NSW: a catalogue of data (NSW Health 1994) (Authors: Beth Stickney, Karen Webb, Cathy Campbell, Alison Moore) (not available online)

The Centre produces and disseminates regular, short reports of the food and nutrition situation in NSW, and for each Area Health Service where data are available, primarily from health survey data collected by the Epidemiology Branch of NSW Health. The data and recommendations in these reports are used to identify areas of need and to improve the ways policies and programs are planned, targeted and implemented.