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Methods for monitoring the cost of a healthy diet based on price data from the International Comparison Program

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 35 p.

Author Bai, Y.; Conti, V.; Herforth, A.; Cafiero, C.; Ebel, A.; Rissanen, M.O.; Masters, W.A.; Rosero Moncayo, J.;

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (series)

ISBN 978-92-5-139302-4

Series title FAO Statistics Working Paper Series

Series number No. 24-43

Synopsis (short abstract) The cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) and the affordability indicators – namely the prevalence (PUA) and the number (NUA) of people unable to afford a healthy diet – measure economic access to adequate food aligned with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) definition of food security. This paper describes and validates methods to compute the cost of a healthy diet in the gap years between the International Comparison Program (ICP) publication cycles using food inflation, or general inflation if food inflation data are not available. It also shows that adjusting energy requirements based on different demographics leads to minor changes in cost (less than 3 percent) and requires extra computational and data inputs while complicating the meaning of the indicator, and therefore is not recommended. Inflation data provide unbiased estimates at the global, regional and income group level for the short term, but this method may not capture accurate diet cost changes at the individual country or territory level. Higher frequency retail price data at the food item level are needed for more accurate and timely monitoring at the country or territory level.

Cite this content as:

Bai, Y., Conti, V., Herforth, A., Cafiero, C., Ebel, A., Rissanen, M.O., Masters, W.A & Rosero Moncayo, J. 2024. Methods for monitoring the cost of a healthy diet based on price data from the International Comparison Program. FAO Statistics Working Paper Series, No. 24-43. Rome, FAO. 

https://doi.org/10.4060/cd3037en

Language English

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