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On 14 March 2007, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
published a report (Australian diet quality index project) which presents
preliminary work in developing the Australian Healthy Eating Index.
A diet quality index (DQI) provides a summary measure of overall diet quality.
It represents a collection of scores applied to selected dietary components
deemed to be representative of a healthy diet. Internationally, measures
of overall diet quality have been associated with chronic disease risk and
health outcomes. This project focuses on usual consumption of food and dietary
behaviours, and consists of seven variables representing three dietary aspects-dietary
variety, fruit and vegetable consumption, and fat (particularly saturated
fat) consumption. These three elements have all been shown to relate to
chronic disease risk, and are weighted equally.
Application of this index would enable the derivation of a single measure for healthy dietary behaviours (particularly in relation to chronic disease risk) from a survey incorporating a limited nutrition component, which would add value to chronic disease risk factor monitoring.