Systematic review of use and interpretation of dietary diversity indicators in nutrition-sensitive agriculture literature

In the past decade, food group dietary diversity indicators (FGIs) have increasingly been used to assess the impact of agriculture on food security or nutrition. Following a structured search strategy and a two-phase screening process, 46 studies investigating associations between agriculture and food security or nutrition through the use of simple FGIs were assessed for how the indicators were constructed and interpreted. Most studies based on individual level FGIs were consistent with published guidance, while many of the studies measuring households' dietary diversity were not, particularly in terms of interpretation of the indicators or of food group classification. Efforts are needed to harmonize the way FGIs are used and interpreted in order to enhance comparability across studies and allow meta-analyses of the association between agriculture and food security or nutrition.