§5313 Development of Comprehensive Plan for National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Program

Summary

The Secretaries, with advice from the Board, must create and carry out one overall plan to monitor and study the nation’s diet and nutrition. The plan must continuously measure and report people’s dietary and nutritional status and trends, with separate attention to groups like young children, pregnant women, the elderly, low-income people, and racial and ethnic groups if the Secretaries choose. It must include special sampling of low-income groups to track food spending, use of food aid, and times when benefits don’t cover a healthy diet. The plan must fund research to set common measures and methods, build and update national nutrition and nutrient data banks, help State and local agencies set up monitoring, and guide Federal agency nutrition activities. At a minimum the plan must keep key surveys going (NHANES and NFCS), set up continuous, stratified national data collection by 1991 that can give reliable estimates for high-risk groups and areas and allow faster (including annual) analysis, and coordinate other Federal programs like CDC and FDA studies. It must include military and institutional groups when appropriate, finish analyzing surveys done before 1984 within the first year of the plan, improve methods and tools for use by States and locals, create uniform standards and baseline data, offer technical help and training to States and regions, invite private and academic participation, list current related activities, assign functions and responsibilities across Federal agencies, and form the basis for each agency’s funding requests for the ten-year program. The Secretaries had to publish a proposed plan in the Federal Register within 12 months after October 22, 1990 for at least 60 days of public comment and then send a final plan to the President and Congress within 60 days after that comment period. The plan cannot change any law about how appropriated funds are assigned or used.