Reducing chronic disease through changes in food aid: A microsimulation of nutrition and cardiometabolic disease among Palestinian refugees in the Middle East

ConclusionsContrary to the supposition in the literature, our findings do not robustly support the theory that transitioning from traditional food aid to either debit card or cash delivery alone would necessarily reduce chronic disease outcomes. Rather, an alternative food parcel would be more effective, even after matching current budget ceilings. But compensatory increases in consumption of less healthy foods may neutralize the improvements from an alternative food parcel unless total aid funding were increased substantially. Our analysis is limited by uncertainty in estimates of modeling long-term outcomes from shorter-term trials, focusing on diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes for which validated equations are available instead of all nutrition-associated health outcomes, and using data from food frequency questionnaires in the absence of 24-hour dietary recall data.

Source: PLoS Medicine - November 20, 2018 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Sanjay Basu Source Type: research