ABSTRACT
This chapter describes nutrition monitoring and surveillance and its importance in contributing to the nutritional status of a population. Nutrition monitoring and surveillance refers to the assessment of nutritional status and health in large population groups. Nutrition monitoring is important for the regular reviewing of the health status of people in a nation, or within high-risk groups within a country. Nutrition monitoring and surveillance typically involves data collection on large groups of people. Nutrition monitoring surveys may also include collection of data on other topics that may be of specific interest for the population being assessed, such as food security, food safety, food literacy, or the provenance of foods consumed. Internationally, large nutrition surveys take place in many countries, particularly high-income countries in Europe, North America and Asia. When a nutrition monitoring activity is particularly aiming to assess severe malnutrition, it is also common for data to be collected from sources other than sampling of the general population.
