How dietary intake has been assessed in African countries? A systematic review

ABSTRACTBackground: Dietary patterns are often considered as one of the main causes of non-communicable diseases worldwide. It is of utmost importance to study dietary habits in developing countries since this work is scarce.Objective: To summarize the most recent research conducted in this field in African countries, namely the most used methodologies and tools.Methods: A systematic review was conducted on MEDLINE®/PubMed, aiming to identify scientific publications focused on studies of dietary intake of different African populations, in a ten-year period. Papers not written in English/Portuguese/Spanish, studies developed among African people but not developed in African countries, studies aiming to assess a particular nutrient/specific food/food toxin and studies that assessed dietary intake among children were excluded.Findings: Out of 99 included studies, the 24-hour recall and the food-frequency questionnaire were the most used dietary intake assessment tools, used to assess diet at an individual le...