Critical review of economic evaluation studies of interventions promoting low‐fat diets

Various national and local policies encouraging healthy eating have recently been proposed. The present review aims to summarize and critically assess nutrition‐economic evaluation studies of direct (e.g., diet counseling) and indirect (e.g., food labeling) interventions aimed at improving dietary habits. A systematic literature review was performed by searching 5 databases (PubMed, Ovid Medline, EconLit, Agricola, and Embase) using a combination of diet‐related (fat, diet, intake, nutrition) and economics‐related (cost‐effectiveness, cost‐benefit, cost‐utility, health economics, economic evaluation) key words. The search yielded 36 studies that varied in target population, study design, economic evaluation method, and health/economic outcome. In general, all provide limited experimental evidence and adopt the framework of economic evaluations in healthcare. Certain important aspects were not well considered: 1) the non‐health‐related effects of nutrition interventions on well‐being; 2) the private nature of food expenditures; 3) the distributional effects on food expenditures across socioeconomic groups; and 4) the general economic implications (e.g., agrofoods, import/export) of such interventions. Overall, the methodology for the economic evaluation of nutrition interventions requires substantial improvement.
Source: Nutrition Reviews - Category: Nutrition Authors: Tags: Special Article Source Type: research