How dietary intake has been assessed in African countries? A systematic review.

<bold>Background: </bold>Dietary patterns are often considered as one of the main causes of non-communicable diseases worldwide. It is of utmost importance to study dietary habits in developing countries since this work is scarce.<bold>Objective: </bold>To summarize the most recent research conducted in this field in African countries, namely the most used methodologies and tools.<bold>Methods: </bold>A systematic review was conducted on MEDLINE®/PubMed, aiming to identify scientific publications focused on studies of dietary intake of different African populations, in a ten-year period. Papers not written in English/Portuguese/Spanish, studies developed among African people but not developed in African countries, studies aiming to assess a particular nutrient/specific food/food toxin and studies that assessed dietary intake among children were excluded.<bold>Findings: </bold>Out of 99 included studies, the 24-hour recall and the food-frequency questionnaire were the most used dietary intake assessment tools, used to assess diet at an individual level. It was also observed that often country-unspecific food composition databases are used, and the methodologies employed are poorly validated and standardized.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>There is an emergent need to improve the existing food databases by updating food data and to develop suitable country-specific databases for those that do not have their own food composition table. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]