| dc.description.abstract | The surveillance of food intake and nutritional profile changes are the purpose of Nutritional Epidemiology, that contribute to the public health improvement. Considering that there are some limitations for implementation of national nutrition surveys, the use of data from health surveys is an important tool to the Nutritional Epidemiology. Three articles were developed usingfour health surveys. The first, Cohort differences in anthropometric measures in the old elderly: The Bambui Cohort Study of Aging, 1997 and 2008, was designed to evaluate the birth cohort effect on the nutritional status among older elderly. The results showed that BMI and prevalence of overweigh were higher in the recent cohort (who were born in 1927-1937) compared to earlier (who were born from 1916 to 1926), regardless gender and schooling. The cohort effect was greater among older men. Whereas that to curb the increase of overweight prevalence the interventions must focus on healthy eating promoting, we developed the second article called Influences of contextual factors on the healthy diet score: a study in an urban environment. The aim of this paper was to investigate individual and contextual factors associated with the healthy diet score (HDS), through multilevel analysis. The persistence of family influence suggests underlying effects, possibly resulting from family eating habits. These, in turn, could be modulated by the contributions of neighborhood factors, which would act as promoters and/or barriers for the adoption of healthy habits. From the results of both papers it is evident that surveillance systems must be continuous and more systematic. The VIGITEL is the only annual health survey in Brazil. However, being a telephone survey there is a need to assess the validity of the estimates, like we did on the second article Validity of data collected by telephone survey: a comparison of Vigitel 2008 and Saúde em Beagá survey. Even without post-stratification weight, the Vigitel estimates were similar than those of Saúde em Beagá, a face-to-face interview survey. Considering the lower cost, the telephone interview is a good option in pub lic health to assess behavioral risk -factor surveillance.We conclude that, given the urgency of a more frequent monitoring of diet and nutritional status of the Brazilians is crucial to use information obtained from health surveys. Additionally, nutritional surveys must be conducted to better understand the trends in the profile of food consumption and nutrition of the population. | |
