Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica e Malattie Infettive

Seminario Scuola Specializzazione Statistica Sanitaria e Biometria

Prof.ssa Valeria Edefonti, Università degli Studi di Milano

Dietary patterns and disease: the role of dietary indexes and

multivariate statistics in shaping dietary recommendations

 

Abstract: Suboptimal diet has recently surpassed smoking as the leading risk factor for

morbidity and mortality from noncommunicable diseases. Although diet may not inherently

be as a strong risk factor for specific chronic diseases as others, limitations in data collection

and analysis paradigms may contribute to a reduced ability to identify these effects

accurately. Challenges include accurate and precise measurement of diet, appropriately

modelling diet complexity, and residual confounding. In the lack of information on the

relationship between exposure, confounders, and disease, current approaches in nutritional

epidemiology include: 1) monitoring diet using traditional tools prone to well-known

limitations; 2) tackling known interactions among foods/nutrients (i.e. nonadditivity) using

standard approaches to the analysis of dietary patterns; 3) relating each of dietary patterns

and confounders to disease risk in a linear way; 4) not modelling interactions between

dietary patterns and confounders. Novel statistical and machine learning approaches may

be used to improve on data collection and analysis paradigms. In this talk, we will specifically

explore current and novel statistical approaches to the analysis of a posteriori dietary

patterns. These patterns, derived by using multivariate statistics, more accurately reflect

actual dietary behaviors in free-living populations. A key aspect of our discussion will be the

reproducibility of a posteriori dietary patterns across different studies, populations, and

countries. This reproducibility is crucial for providing robust epidemiological evidence to

support the development of national and international dietary guidelines and for shaping

effective public health messages.

 

Email per ulteriori informazioni : luigi.palla@uniroma1.it

 

 

 

 

 

MercoledÍ 11 Dicembre 2024, ore 16:00

Aula C1, Dipartimento Sanità Pubblica e

Malattie Infettive, Istituto Sanarelli

(CU015), piazzale Aldo Moro 5, ROMA