CGIAR Initiative on Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH):

Validation study of the Food Recognition Assistance and Nudging Insights (FRANI) mobile app. in Sri Lanka

Background

The global burden of disease analyses estimates that 20% of deaths are due to unhealthy diets. Micronutrient deficiencies impair children’s physical and mental development. Global shifts towards increased consumption of unhealthy foods and reductions in physical activity have contributed to the global increase overweight and obesit. Behaviors related to food choice are mediated by individual and environmental factors including food availability, access, social influence, taste and preferences. Interventions at home, community and workplace can shape the food environment and influence behaviors. Adolescence is a time when habits are formed, when youth start making their own decisions and are sensitive and selective about information sources. Advertising, nutrition education, food vending and peers play a role. Less is known about food environments and food-choices in low-income settings, where few studies have investigated diets and the types and sources of foods consumed by adolescents. There’s a need to identify policy levers to address the shift from under- to over-nutrition and related non-communicable diseases.

 

In parallel, despite the critical need to improve diets in adolescents in LMICs, there are little data on their dietary intake. Collection and use of individual-level, quantitative dietary intake data have long been hindered due to critical bottlenecks related to high cost, time burden, complexity, and limited capacity. Among several methods to collect individual-level dietary data, dietary surveys commonly use the multi pass 24-hour recall (24HR) method that has been validated for use in LMICs in adults self-reporting their intake or that of their young children and in adolescents. Undertaking multi pass 24-hour recalls at scale requires substantial financial investments: Costs for a 24HR vary considerably by context and are of the order of $100 per person recall. Tailoring the dietary assessment method with respondent characteristics is paramount. Technology-assisted dietary assessment tools have been proposed in some studies, but existing tools are constrained by lack of assessments of validity and feasibility of use in LMIC, including in adolescents.

 

Mobile phone app-based nutrition interventions, games and social media have potential to reach adolescents at scale, given the increase in the use of games, social media, and mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries (LIMC). Findings from a literature review and focus group discussions (FGDs) with adolescent girls suggested that adolescents were interested in improving the quality of their diet and had access to smartphones, but they did not have access to reliable sources of information on diets nor used nutrition-related apps. They were interested in using technologies to improve their health and were also concerned about their weight. The review highlighted that there is a technology gap between supply and demand of apps that provide appropriate dietary-related advice to adolescent girls. Existing apps are not practical enough and focus on weight management rather than on improving food choices and diet quality. There is thus an opportunity to address these gaps through new technology developed as a public good.

 

The CGIAR initiative Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH) will use an end-to-end approach to increase F&V intake, improve diet quality, nutrition and health while also improving livelihoods, empowering women and youth and mitigating negative environmental impacts. One workstream in FRESH is dedicated to understanding consumer behavior; including investigating how people chose what they eat, and what can be used to influence those choices. FRESH will use innovative interventions – such as mobile phone apps – to understand how people can be encouraged to make better diet choices. Among these innovations is the Food Recognition Assistance and Nudging Insights (FRANI) app. The Nudging for Good project developed, validated, and assessed the feasibility of using innovative AI mobile technology to provide real-time diagnostics and tailored “nudging” on dietary intake as a strategy to improve diets and nutrition of adolescent girls living in urban settings in Ghana and Vietnam.

 

FRESH researchers will adapt the FRANI tool to undertake a validation and randomized feasibility pilots in adolescents in one of the focus countries, Sri Lanka. We are looking to hire an individual, organization, or firm who is able to perform the following tasks and possess the following qualifications.

 

Essential Responsibilities:

1. In close collaboration with the IFPRI research team, develop a plan for the focus group discussion. Once finalized, conduct focus group discussions with adolescent girls on mobile phone and social network use.

2. In close collaboration with the IFPRI research team, develop context-appropriate content for the FRANI app’s nudges and feedback that will be sent to test users.

3. In close collaboration with the IFPRI research team, co-design and then execute a validation study on the mobile phone application against weighed records and 24-hr recall. This includes the identification and training of enumerators to carry out the primary data collection, in alignment with local and international ethical standards.

4. In close collaboration with the IFPRI research team, co-design and then execute a feasibility study and randomized pilot. This includes the identification and training of enumerators to carry out the primary data collection, in alignment with local and international ethical standards.

 

Expected Deliverables:

1. Summary presentation from focus group discussions

2. In collaboration with IFPRI researchers, report on content for the mobile FRANI app

3. Validation study dataset, including weighed records, 24hr recall and FRANI data

4. Randomized feasibility study data set, including 2 months of data for 60 participants

 

Required Qualifications:

• Background in nutrition, public health, or related field
• Experience working on nutrition-related issues in Sri Lanka
• Experience with primary data collection; including familiarity with and ability to adhere to local and international ethical standards and working as part of a team to develop a study protocol and field plan.
• Experience with preparing annotated calibrated images to train computer vision models.
• Experience training enumerators on primary data analysis.
• Proficient in data management and analysis.
• Experience maintaining and updating spreadsheets or databases.
• Experience in program coordination and management; proficient in managing teams of people with multiple reporting deadlines.
• Experience in report writing.
• Fluency in English.

 

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience in primary data collection techniques of weighed records and 24-hour recall.
• Experience in the fruit and vegetable sector in Sri Lanka.

 

To respond to this opportunity please upload/share the following:

• CV/Résumé along with Cover Letter and availability (working days per month) for the consultancy. Please upload as one attachment to the CV portion of the application
• We invite qualified individuals or companies to provide a detailed plan and budget to execute the above duties.