Digital quality of diet as a part of healthcare data - Foodnutri-data

Need: Various actors (such as municipalities, welfare areas, research institutes, occupational health care operators, consumers, companies) still lack an evidence-based, easily accessible solution for monitoring, describing and planning the nutrition of individuals and populations. For example, municipalities need information on the food consumption of residents and its quality for reporting well-being reports and to plan possible interventions, well-being areas need information on the food consumption of the population to plan health care activities, and consumers are interested in the quality of diet and its impact on health. The quality of the diet plays a key role in health and well-being, as well as the risk of illness, which has a major impact on an individual’s quality of life, work performance and the cost of health care and other support measures at the population level.

The Nutrition Navigator, launched in November 2024, can be currently used to collect data on the quality of an individual’s diet. The current features of the tool require development before they are suitable for use by municipalities and other operators who need dietary data for different population groups. In addition, there have been requests from various actors for further development of the tools, so that they could also be utilized in, for example, group guidance and guidance to follow up the modification in the diet. Further development is also required to support lifestyle guidance for young people, because the development of existing tools has been based on the needs of adults and nutritional recommendations. Lifestyle guidance for high school and vocational schools is also seen as important, since according to the school health survey 2023 good one third of high school students and vocational school students in North Savo do not eat school lunch every day that will have an impact on their work ability during the school day.

Objectives: In this project, the development of digital services, the Finnish Nutrition Navigator and the Nutrition Path, will be carried out together with different actors so that the needs of different actors are taken into account. The goal is that the tools developed to measure, monitor and facilitate change of the diet, can be utilized as widely as possible and over a time span of 2-5 years as part of the normal activities of these actors. In addition, we collect evidence of the effectiveness of digital services and possible cost savings to support institutes using the digital services.

Solution: In this follow-up project, we will develop digital services to integrate index calculation in accordance with the latest Finnish nutrition recommendations and to take into account the climate aspects of diet consumed. In addition, we will develop services in cooperation with various actors and test the integration of services into their own digital platforms. We also develop data sharing: how the collected data is shared and what requirements it places on the service. Tools are introduced for data visualisation that facilitate the collection of data and supporting evidence based information in the activities by municipalities and other actors. Special target groups for development are seen as young people and young adults: how the Finnish Nutrition Navigator and Path best serve these user groups.