%0 Journal Article %@ 2475-2991 %A Verger, EO %A Eymard-Duvernay, S %A Bahya-Batinda, D %A Hanley-Cook, GT %A Argaw, A %A Becquey, E %A Diop, L %A Gelli, A %A Harris-Fry, H %A Kachwaha, S %A Kim, SS %A Nguyen, PH %A Saville, NM %A Tran, LM %A Zagré, RR %A Landais, E %A Savy, M %A Martin-Prevel, Y %A Lachat, C %D 2024 %F discovery:10184758 %I Elsevier BV %J Current Developments in Nutrition %K Dietary diversity, indicator, micronutrient adequacy, minimum dietary diversity for women, pregnant, resource-poor settings %N 1 %T Defining a Dichotomous Indicator for Population-Level Assessment of Dietary Diversity Among Pregnant Adolescent Girls and Women: A Secondary Analysis of Quantitative 24-h Recalls from Rural Settings in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, India, and Nepal %U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10184758/ %V 8 %X BACKGROUND: The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of Reproductive Age (MDD-W) indicator was validated as a proxy of micronutrient adequacy among nonpregnant women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). At that time, indeed, there was insufficient data to validate the indicator among pregnant women, who face higher micronutrient requirements. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to validate a minimum food group consumption threshold, out of the 10 food groups used to construct MDD-W, to be used as a population-level indicator of higher micronutrient adequacy among pregnant women aged 15–49 y in LMICs. METHODS: We used secondary quantitative 24-h recall data from 6 surveys in 4 LMICs (Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, India, and Nepal, total n = 4909). We computed the 10-food group Women's Dietary Diversity Score (WDDS-10) and calculated the mean probability of adequacy (MPA) of 11 micronutrients. Linear regression models were fitted to assess the associations between WDDS-10 and MPA. Sensitivity, specificity, and proportion of individuals correctly classified were used to assess the performance of MDD-W in predicting an MPA of >0.60. RESULTS: In the pooled sample, median values (interquartile range) of WDDS-10 and MPA were 3 (1) and 0.20 (0.34), respectively, whereas the proportion of pregnant women with an MPA of >0.60 was 9.6%. The WDDS-10 was significantly positively associated with MPA in each survey. Although the acceptable food group consumption threshold varied between 4 and 6 food groups across surveys, the threshold of 5 showed the highest performance in the pooled sample with good sensitivity (62%), very good specificity (81%), and percentage of correctly classified individuals (79%). CONCLUSIONS: The WDDS-10 is a good predictor of dietary micronutrient adequacy among pregnant women aged 15–49 y in LMICs. Moreover, the threshold of 5 or more food groups for the MDD-W indicator may be extended to all women of reproductive age, regardless of their physiologic status. %Z © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Society for Nutrition. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).