About the Project and Team

Motivation and Aims

This project aims to collect dietary quality data in the general adult population across countries worldwide, and to provide the tools for valid and feasible diet quality monitoring within countries. The project enables the collection of consistent, comparable dietary data across countries for the first time.

All data are collected in the Gallup World Poll. The DQQ was administered in national probability-based samples of civilian, non-institutionalized individuals of any gender, aged 15 and older. Data collection occurred either using face-to-face or telephone surveys. Country-specific details of data collection can be found here. The Gallup World Poll is the only survey in the world that covers more than 98% of the world's adult population through annual, nationally representative surveys with comparable metrics across countries.

In April 2024, a group of Member States (Switzerland, Brazil, Malawi and Bangladesh), with the support of FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO proposed the ‘Prevalence of Minimum Dietary Diversity’ among women and children to be included as an SDG 2 indicator. The data supporting this proposal was collected using the DQQ in the Gallup World Poll and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

The DQQ, a 5-minute standardized survey module, increases comparability and reduces costs and technical requirements for tracking the MDD-W and other diet quality indicators. USAID guidance states that “The Diet Quality Questionnaire is a rapid, low-cost survey instrument that collects country-specific, comparable food group consumption data to calculate numerous diet quality indicators, including MDD-W. The transition to a Diet Quality Questionnaire reduces the overall time needed to collect women’s dietary information…and increases comparability of [Feed the Future] MDD-W results with other secondary data sources that follow the same approach, notably the DHS.” (page 15, Guidance for the Implementation of Zone of Influence Surveys for Feed the Future Target Countries)

Team

The Global Diet Quality Project is a collaboration between Gallup, Harvard Department of Global Health and Population, and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

GallupHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Department of Global Health and PopulationGAIN: Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition

Core team members

Anna Herforth, Senior Research Associate, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Andrew Rzepa., Partner, Gallup, Inc.

Ty Beal, Research Advisor, Knowledge Leadership, GAIN

GAIN team: Andoni Santamaria Kampfner
Gallup team: Zacc Ritter, Kiki Papachristoforou, Zach Bikus, Taylor Auger, Pablo Diego-Rosell

Collaborators

DQQ Adaptation Team: Cecilia Gonzalez, Kristina Sokourenko, Andrea Spray Bulungu, Betül Uyar, Chris Vogliano

Independent: Terri Ballard (original core team), Doris Wiesmann (lead indicator analyst)

Wageningen University & Research: Inge Brouwer, Elise Talsma, Laura Trijsburg, Tesfaye Hailu Bekele, Duong Van, Edith Feskens

University of São Paulo: Carlos Monteiro, Euridice Martinez-Steele, Isabela Sattamini, Giovanna Andrade

Columbia University: Pamela Koch, Deborah Olarte, and Community Nutrition students

Demographic and Health Surveys: Sorrel Namaste, Rukundo Benedict

Technical Advisory Group (2016-2018): Lynnette Neufeld, Francesco Branca, Jennifer Coates, Megan Deitchler, Marlene Heeb, Fumiaki Imamura, Gina Kennedy, Anna Lartey, Catherine Leclercq, Carlos Monteiro, Abigail Perry, Ivo Rakovac, Shelly Sundberg, Anne Swindale, Patrick Webb

Many other collaborators, including the global network of over 850 key informants who made this work possible.

Donors

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDCEuropean Union FlagGerman Cooperation Implemented by GIZThe Rockefeller FoundationUSAID: From the American PeopleIn partnership with Canada