Nutrition Survailance

types of surveillance indicators for: a) Nutrition in the community Nutritional surveillance indicators in community’s range from obesity to food insecurity in units from families to governments. The causes of poor nutrition are multiple and complex, involving biological, economic, social, cultural, and policy issues. Community nutrition encompasses a broad set of activities designed to provide access to a safe, adequate, healthful diet to a population living in a particular geographic area. These activities include nutrition education, nutrition or health promotion, food programs, supplementation programs (e.g., fluoride), preventive programs, local policy analysis and development, and the organizational infrastructure that supports it. “Ideally, community nutrition involves four interrelated steps to deliver services: assessment to identify the problem(s), planning to meet the community nutrition needs, implementation to develop systems to reduce the problem and evaluation to see if the problem has been ameliorated or solved,” with food insecurity in line that could be an indicator for poor nutrition and that obesity in children is as a result of malnutrition b) Food security Sufficient, safe and nutritious food is critical to health and wellbeing. Food security is achieved when all people have consistent access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The four pillars of food security are availability, access, utilization and stability. The nutritional dimension is integral to the concept of food security. The surveillance indicators include : The presence of food policy that supports food security, within Health Authorities. This indicator provides a measure of a Health Authority’s organizational commitment to food security by accounting for the presence of food policies that support food security. For the purpose of this indicator, a food policy encompasses all policies pertaining to food that have been formally endorsed by the organization – whether that be a single comprehensive policy or multiple individual policies. Proportion of communities that have ongoing food actions supported through the Community Food Action Initiative. This indicator assesses community capacity by counting community food security planning initiatives that are supported, directly or indirectly, through the Community Food Action Initiative (CFAI). The annual cost of a nutritious food basket in BC, as a proportion of family income This indicator assesses food security at the family level by focusing on a family’s ability to afford healthy foods. A nutritious food basket, as defined by Health Canada, “includes . . . basic foods that require food preparation skills, c) Health and environment The scope of Environmental health surveillance is logically deduced from the Environmental Health’s one: "Environmental health comprises those aspects of human health, including quality of life, which are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social, psychosocial and aesthetic environment. It also covers policy and management practices, resorption, control and prevention of environmental factors may affect the health of present and future" the indicators include climate change, asthma and Air change, these indicators, which are standardized and can be compared across states, can be used to detect trends over time, to identify geographic areas in need of improvement, and as a basis for influencing environmental public health policy. d) Livelihoods A Livelihood is the combination of all activities (agricultural and non-agricultural) making up the resources (economic and food) that allows the household to continue to exist (to meet its basic needs) and to develop. In other words, a livelihood comprises the capabilities, comprised of assets (including both material and social resources) and activities used by household for a means of living. A household’s livelihood is secure, when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, and maintain or enhance its capabilities and productive asset base. The nutrition surveillance for livelihood include poverty and food insecurity, poor health and high mortality rate.