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Review
. 2020 May 31:19:101135.
doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2020.101135. eCollection 2020 Sep.

Dietary policies and programs in the United States: A narrative review

Rienna Russo  1 , Yan Li  2 , Stella Chong  1 , David Siscovick  3 , Chau Trinh-Shevrin  1 , Stella Yi  1
Affiliations
Review

Dietary policies and programs in the United States: A narrative review

Rienna Russo et al. Prev Med Rep. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Prior reviews describing approach, methodological quality and effectiveness of dietary policies and programs may be limited in use for practitioners seeking to introduce innovative programming, or academic researchers hoping to understand and address gaps in the current literature. This review is novel, assessing the "where, who, and in whom" of dietary policies and programs research in the United States over the past decade - with results intended to serve as a practical guide and foundation for innovation. This study was conducted from October 2018 to March 2019. Papers were selected through a tailored search strategy on PubMed as well as citation searches, to identify grey literature. A total of 489 papers were relevant to our research objective. The largest proportion of papers described school-based strategies (31%) or included economic incentives (19%). In papers that specified demographics, the study populations most often included children, adults and adolescents (54%, 46%, and 42% respectively); and White, Black and Hispanic populations (77%, 76% and 70%, respectively). Results highlight opportunities for future research within workplace and faith-based settings, among racial/ethnic minorities, and older adults.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Diet behaviors; Health policy; Nutrition.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Frequency of dietary programs, policies and interventions strategies represented in the literature. There were 641 interventions represented in 489 articles.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Frequency of implementing agency. Total number of implementing agencies is the denominator. There were 703 implementing agencies mentioned in 489 articles.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Frequency of articles reporting study population characteristics in dietary programs, policies and interventions, among those specifying study population characteristics. a) Age. b) Race/ethnicity.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Counts of studies by strategy published over time. * Search conducted in October 2018 – number of studies in 2018 were underestimated.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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