About the Project and Team

Motivation and Aims

This project aims to collect dietary quality data in the general adult population across countries worldwide, and to provide the tools for valid and feasible diet quality monitoring within countries. The project enables the collection of consistent, comparable dietary data across countries for the first time.

All data are collected in the Gallup World Poll. The DQQ was administered in national probability-based samples of civilian, non-institutionalized individuals of any gender, aged 15 and older. Data collection occurred either using face-to-face or telephone surveys. Country-specific details of data collection can be found here: Download Collection Details PDF. The Gallup World Poll is the only survey in the world that covers more than 98% of the world's adult population through annual, nationally representative surveys with comparable metrics across countries.

In April 2024, a group of Member States (Switzerland, Brazil, Malawi and Bangladesh), with the support of FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO proposed the ‘Prevalence of Minimum Dietary Diversity’ among women and children to be included as an SDG 2 indicator. The data supporting this proposal was collected using the DQQ in the Gallup World Poll and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

The DQQ, a 5-minute standardized survey module, increases comparability and reduces costs and technical requirements for tracking the MDD-W and other diet quality indicators. USAID guidance states that “The Diet Quality Questionnaire is a rapid, low-cost survey instrument that collects country-specific, comparable food group consumption data to calculate numerous diet quality indicators, including MDD-W. The transition to a Diet Quality Questionnaire reduces the overall time needed to collect women’s dietary information…and increases comparability of [Feed the Future] MDD-W results with other secondary data sources that follow the same approach, notably the DHS.” (page 15, Guidance for the Implementation of Zone of Influence Surveys for Feed the Future Target Countries)