Development, features and application of DIET ASSESS & PLAN (DAP) software in supporting public health nutrition research in Central Eastern European Countries (CEEC)

- Identified lack of standardized dietary intake data and tools in CEEC region.
- Need for harmonized dietary assessment, monitoring and nutrition surveillance.
- DIET ASSESS & PLAN-DAP - software for standardized food consumption data collection.
- DAP supports Capacity Development in nutrition research and surveillance in CEEC.
- DAP is Research Infrastructure for public health nutrition epidemiology and policy.

In order to meet growing public health nutrition challenges in Central Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and Balkan countries, development of a Research Infrastructure (RI) and availability of an effective nutrition surveillance system are a prerequisite. The building block of this RI is an innovative tool called DIET ASSESS & PLAN (DAP), which is a platform for standardized and harmonized food consumption collection, comprehensive dietary intake assessment and nutrition planning. Its unique structure enables application of national food composition databases (FCDBs) from the European food composition exchange platform (28 national FCDBs) developed by EuroFIR (http://www.eurofir.org/) and in addition allows communication with other tools. DAP is used for daily menu and/or long-term diet planning in diverse public sector settings, foods design/reformulation, food labelling, nutrient intake assessment and calculation of the dietary diversity indicator, Minimum Dietary Diversity-Women (MDD-W). As a validated tool in different national and international projects, DAP represents an important RI in public health nutrition epidemiology in the CEEC region.