Having data on what people eat is crucial for the design of effective, evidenced-based nutrition and agriculture policies and programs. To increase the availability and use of reliable data, FHI 360 established Intake, a Center for Dietary Assessment that provides technical support for population-level dietary assessment surveys in low- and middle-income countries.

With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Intake is able to offer demand-driven, flexible, technical assistance services at no cost to low- and middle-income countries interested in conducting large-scale dietary surveys to inform country policy and program design.

Intake’s technical assistance covers the full range of survey activities, from survey planning and design to the collection, analysis and use of dietary intake data. Services include:

• Statistical services related to dietary data: study design, sample design and sample size, and data analysis plans
• Pre-survey work: protocol development, survey planning and development of survey tools and inputs, including the food, recipe and ingredient database for a quantitative 24-hour recall dietary survey
• Training for survey implementation: training on the quantitative 24-hour recall method and simple food-group recall methods
• Technical supervision: supervision during fieldwork, including data quality control procedures
• Data cleaning and processing: plans and training with an emphasis on concurrent data cleaning during data collection
• Analysis, interpretation, presentation and use of dietary data