Experts to Assess Diet Methods, Health at International Conference

More than 350 individuals from more that 30 countries will attend the Fourth International Conference on Dietary Assessment Methods Sept. 17 - 20, at the El Conquistador Sheraton Resort in Tucson.

The conference is being hosted by the University of Arizona Colleges of Public Health, Agriculture and Medicine.

This conference will address the dietary methods that are used to study several priority areas in public health such as maternal and infant health, heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic disabling conditions, alcohol intake, and non-nutritive substances such as phytoestrogens, phenols, fat substitutes, and dietary supplements.

Dietary methods are the cornerstone for conducting epidemiological and intervention studies on nutrition and health.

The conference has a distinguished local and international advisory committee. Presentations will be from leading academic research institutions, and national and international health agencies, such as, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and from several Ministries of Health.

Sessions dedicated to methods for determining the extent of food insecurity and hunger in developed and developing countries also will be part of the conference.

Throughout the conference there will be sessions on how to better collect dietary data, validate new methods, and improve statistical methods for analysis of dietary data. From these presentations and from the collective effort of participants, the science of dietary methods will be compiled and advanced by this meeting.

More information about the conference can be obtained from Douglas Taren, conference chairman at the University of Arizona College of Public Health.

The participants plan to identify future research priorities in diet assessment methodology before the conference ends.