A presentation by Dr. Ebenezer Kwofie, Assistant Professor, Food Systems Sustainability and Resilience, College of Engineering, University of Arkansas

1. Ebenezer Miezah Kwofie, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biological and
Agricultural Engineering, University of
Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA

2. Methods of Assessment of the Impact of
COVID-19 on Community Dietary
Patterns
 Examines the methods of assessment of
community dietary patterns
 Discuss how COVID-19 pandemic has
altered the dynamics of nutrition, health,
and general dietary patterns for many
people around the world
 How can current methods measure this
impact

3. Dietary Guidelines
• Dietary guidelines - used to
establish public food, nutrition,
health, and nutrition educational
programs that promote healthy
food intake patterns and
lifestyles
• Dietary guidelines can be
applied to adjust food
consumption patterns and
thereby manage populations’
health indexes

4. Dietary
Pattern
Analysis - A
Posteriori
• Data-driven approach
that applies
mathematics to
extract dietary (that is,
food consumption)
patterns empirically.
• Food frequency
questionnaires, diet
records, and 24-hour
recalls are commonly
used to collect the
dietary data
• Factor Analysis
• Cluster Analysis
• Reduced Rank
Regression
• Treelet Transform

5. Dietary
Pattern
Analysis - A
Priori (Diet
Quality
Indexes)
• Diet quality indexes
are instruments used
to assess and
calculate dietary
patterns
• Elements are usually
scored using random
weights and then
added together to
produce a total score
that best reflects
people’s health, food
intake habits, and
attitudes.
• The Diet Quality
Index
• The Healthy Eating
Index
• The Healthy Diet
Indicator
• The Mediterranean
Diet Scale

6. Impact of COVID-19 on Dietary Pattern: Looking
beyond the status quo
Food Diversity Anxiety
Body Image Perception
PhysicalActivity and LifestyleChanges
 Population studies focuses
on various aspects of diet
quality measurements and
their corresponding indexes.
 Look beyond the status quo
and measure other factors
that are essential to augment
our understanding of the
impacts of COVID-19

7. Strategies for
Large-Scale
Improvements
of Populations’
Dietary
Behaviors
• Education-Based
Large-Scale BCC
Strategies
• Interpersonal
counseling,
community-based
mass media,
community
mobilization, or a
combination of
these techniques
• Community
Activity–Based
Large-Scale BCC
• Community-
based
interventions to
improve
population
dietary and diet-
related health
behavior