Final Report Summary - DAFNE-WBC (The use of household budget survey data as a tool for nutrition interventions in the post-conflict Western Balkan countries ...) Following a decade of internal conflict, countries of the Balkan region have undergone demographic and nutritional transitions, which have brought about changes in the dietary habits adopted by the populations. The availability of data that would allow for the monitoring of food habits in the region is either restricted to small scale studies of limited scope or simply non-existent. Food availability data at household level are collected through the household budget surveys (HBS). Unlike other sources of dietary data in the region, HBS are nationally representative, systematically conducted by the national statistics offices of the Balkan countries, and provide for the linkage between nutrition habits and explanatory demographic and socio-economic factors. The exploitation of the HBS food data for monitoring dietary habits in Europe has been evaluated in the Data Food Networking (DAFNE) initiative. The DAFNE project has been successful in developing the methodology for harmonizing the HBS data of 21 European countries, http://www.nut.uoa.gr. The project know as 'The use of household budget survey data as a tool for nutrition interventions in the post-conflict Western Balkan countries - the European Data Food Networking (DAFNE) approach (DAFNE-WBC) aimed to harmonise and render comparable the existing HBS food data, according to the DAFNE methodology, in order to establish the foundations for a nutrition monitoring system in Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. The project further aimed to utilise this nutrition monitoring system in order to evaluate associations with the prevalence of nutrition-related chronic diseases in the region. The specific objectives of the DAFNE-WBC project were: - to train researchers from Western Balkan Countries (WBC) in applying the methodology developed in the context of the DAFNE initiative to their national HBS, in order to monitor the food choices of their populations, to evaluate the implementation of nutrition strategies and actions, and to follow the demographic and socio-economic determinants of eating habits. to integrate harmonised food data from WBC into DafneSoft, a software application tool providing free access to internationally comparable dietary data, through the internet, http://www.nut.uoa.gr/dafnesoftweb/. - to identify dietary patterns prevailing in the region in the general populations and in population sub-groups and evaluating associations with nutrition-related chronic diseases. - to apply the updated DAFNE food databank for developing national and international nutrition interventions in the region focusing on the fight against socioeconomic inequalities in food choices. - to prepare future community RTD activities, via the identification of food habits in the Western Balkan region. Related documents Final Report - DAFNE-WBC (The use of household budget survey data as a tool for nutrition interventions in the post-conflict Western Balkan countries?)
