PRB Enters the Nutrition Arena

• New & Noteworthy in Nutrition  Issue 2, June 2008 (PDF: 450KB)
• New & Noteworthy in Nutrition  Issue 1, December 2007 (PDF: 362KB)

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Welcome Back.

(June 2008) There have been two especially noteworthy nutrition "events" since the last NNN was issued. The first was planned—the release of the Lancet series on maternal and child nutrition. An important part of this NNN covers that series and the reactions of a number of actors in global nutrition efforts. The second "event" was not planned—the food crisis that has enveloped much of the world. Given the exceptional importance of what is happening with food prices, the availability of food, and their links with hunger and malnutrition, this edition of NNN also covers the food crisis. However, in light of the extensive coverage of this topic in leading newspapers and journals, we offer here only a summary article.

The response to the first edition of NNN was heartening. We received much valuable feedback. NNN has been downloaded from PRB's website more than 2,100 times, and 769 people have already joined NNN's unique distribution list. In addition, several people and organizations have submitted articles and informa­tion to NNN, thus contributing in valuable ways to the preparation of this issue. We look forward to more feedback from our readers, to getting additional subscriptions, and to continuing to receive ideas and articles.

In light of what we heard from readers, we have grouped some articles under a new heading called "Nutrition and Development" to highlight these critical links. We have added a new section to NNN called "Nutrition Factoids."

Much more noteworthy material on obesity was available than could be summarized in this issue. We have highlighted only a few articles on obesity here but will cover more in the next issue, given its increasing importance in so many countries. The next issue will also return to having a number of articles on HIV and nutrition.

We would like to offer special thanks to Elaine Murphy and Tom Merrick for helping to underwrite this issue of NNN. Ashley Mills, Jacqueline Posada, and Ashley Vij, former students of mine at The George Washington University, also deserve thanks for their excellent work as contributing writers during their internships with PRB over the spring semester. The Secretariat of the UN Standing Committee on Nutri­tion and the International Food Policy Research Institute were also helpful in the preparation of this issue.

Please share NNN with others and encourage them to sign up for the distribution list (click here). If we continue to build readership and find the small amount of funding we are seeking to maintain NNN, we are hoping to publish six times a year, as many have said they would like to see.

Best regards,

Richard Skolnik
Vice President, International Programs, and Editor, NNN
Population Reference Bureau

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For More Information

The Population Reference Bureau, long known for its objective and evidence-based work on demography, population, and reproductive health, has entered the nutrition arena with a package of nutrition efforts. PRB’s involvement in nutrition reflects its concerns about the centrality of nutrition to other issues of human health, productivity, and well-being. In July 2007, PRB sponsored a seminar on nutrition and chronic diseases. In August 2007, PRB held a press briefing for the release of its 2007 World Population Data Sheet and, for the first time, focused that press conference on malnutrition. Nutrition was also featured in an accompanying PRB Population Bulletin, and in a policy brief on malnutrition written by James Levinson and Lucy Bassett. The brief is an effort to summarize in a clear, user-friendly, and evidence-based manner the most critical nutrition issues in global health and what we have learned can be done about them in cost-effective ways.
www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2007/2007WorldPopulationDataSheet.aspx

PRB has also published a newsletter on nutrition and the elderly, as part of a program on aging sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Underweight, Undernutrition, and the Aging  Issue 8, October 2007 (PDF: 72KB)