The GDD 2018 Beta-Version

Overview

Draft estimates are currently available for a set of dietary factors in GDD 2018. These data and estimates are preliminary and will be refined, updated, and appended on a rolling basis through Summer 2021. This will include work to finalize our input data, covariate data, and statistical prediction model to ensure our estimates are as accurate as possible. 

We welcome expert opinions from all of our data users. If you have any questions or comments on the data or intake patterns upon download, we invite you to contact us here. 

Data are intended for exploratory purposes only. Data are not intended for publication purposes at this time. All data are property of Tufts University.

Currently Available Dietary Factors

  • Fruits
  • Non-starchy vegetables
  • Beans and legumes
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Unprocessed red meats
  • Sugar-sweetened beverages
  • Fruit juices
  • Total milk
  • Total protein
  • Calcium
  • Potassium

Available Population Characteristics

GDD 2018 estimates dietary intake for the global population by the following characteristics.

Year

1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015. Estimates for 2018 will be made available in the final version.

Country

185 countries, listed here

Age

0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85-89, 90-94, 95+

Sex

Male and female

Residence

Urban and rural (as defined by each survey's characteristics)

Education Level

Low (0-6 years formal education), medium (6.01-12.0 years), and high (12.01+ years)

GDD 2018 Improvements

Compared to GDD 2010, GDD 2018 now:

  • Contains close to 1,500 survey-years of individual-level dietary intake data, considerably increasing our catalog of inputs
  • Contains data for all ages, including infants, children, and youth
  • Estimates intake stratified by education (in 3 levels) and urban versus rural residence
  • Contains data for 54 dietary factors
  • Utilizes dietary intake data through the year 2018
  • Estimates intake for close to 99% of the world's population, compared to 82% in the previous iteration

 

How We Develop These Estimates

There are multiple steps involved in developing our dietary intake estimates:

  • Systematic searches of literature to identify public and private data sources
  • Collection of individual-level dietary data
  • Harmonization and standardization of data
  • Incorporating covariate data
  • Modeling individual-level dietary intake

Additional information can be found here. Detailed methodology about the above steps is coming soon.

Original Survey Data

We are currently in the process of uploading metadata and data files for all surveys in the GDD to our website. To see the full list of surveys currently on our site, go to this page. To see the complete metadata file for all GDD surveys (including those not yet uploaded to the site), go to this page.