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Methods for monitoring the affordability of a healthy diet












Bai,Y., Herforth, A., Cafiero, C., Conti, V., Rissanen, M.O., Masters, W.A. &Rosero Moncayo, J. 2024. Methods for monitoring the affordability of ahealthy diet. FAO Statistics Working Paper Series, No. 24‑44. Rome,FAO. 



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    Methods and options to monitor the cost and affordability of a healthy diet globally
    Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022
    2022
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    FAO is focusing its attention on the pursuit of healthy diets and transformations of agrifood systems to ensure healthy diets are affordable for all. Measuring and systematically monitoring the cost and affordability of healthy diets and making progress towards ensuring the affordability of healthy diets is of upmost importance and is urgently needed. To this end, FAO is committed to institutionalize the computation of the least-cost healthy diet, and the corresponding affordability indicator, and to publish updated estimates in the annual The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, as well as provide the full data series on FAOSTAT. This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 report presents the new methodological refinements applied in the estimation of the average cost of a healthy diet. This is an important methodological update as it results in a more robust indicator that provides greater transparency and supports long-term systematic monitoring utilizing annually updated price data. The paper then explores potential mechanisms and data sources for monitoring globally the cost of a healthy diet.
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    Methods for monitoring the cost of a healthy diet based on price data from the International Comparison Program 2024
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    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.
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    Variations in the subnational cost and affordability of a healthy diet for selected countries in Africa
    Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023
    2023
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    This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 presents an innovative analysis of within-country variability of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD). The study uses an innovative spatial perspective by analysing the changes along the urban–rural catchment areas (URCA) and using the Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) of 11 African countries. The results show that the cost of a healthy diet in peri-urban areas is lower than it is in urban areas, but the percentage of the population unable to afford a healthy diet is always higher in the surroundings of urban centres. The gap is particularly large between small cities and their surrounding areas, and the share of population unable to secure a healthy diet is disproportionally high in the more remote rural areas. The paper also investigates three methodological issues that were encountered during the analysis to provide evidence on the validity of the FAO Healthy Diet Basket (HDB) methodology for the estimation of subnational cost and affordability of a healthy diet.

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