To review existing publications using Household Consumption and Expenditure Survey (HCES) data to estimate household dietary nutrient supply to (1) describe scope of available literature, (2) identify the metrics reported and parameters used to construct these metrics, (3) summarise comparisons between estimates derived from HCES and individual dietary assessment data and (4) explore the demographic and socio-economic sub-groups used to characterise risks of nutrient inadequacy.

This study is a systematic review of publications identified from online databases published between 2000 to 2019 that used HCES food consumption data to estimate household dietary nutrient supply. Further publications were identified by ‘snowballing’ the references of included database-identified publications.

Publications using data from low- and lower-middle income countries.

In total, fifty-eight publications were included. Three metrics were reported that characterised household dietary nutrient supply: apparent nutrient intake per adult-male equivalent per day (n 35), apparent nutrient intake per capita per day (n 24) and nutrient density (n 5). Nutrient intakes were generally overestimated using HCES food consumption data, with several studies finding sizeable discrepancies compared with intake estimates based on individual dietary assessment methods. Sub-group analyses predominantly focused on measuring variation in household dietary nutrient supply according to socio-economic position and geography.

HCES data are increasingly being used to assess diets across populations. More research is needed to inform the development of a framework to guide the use of and qualified interpretation of dietary assessments based on these data.

To estimate the effect of early, regular breast-milk pumping on time to breast-milk feeding (BMF) and exclusive BMF cessation, for working and non-working women.

Using the Infant Feeding Practices Survey II (IFPS II), we estimated weighted hazard ratios (HR) for the effect of regular pumping (participant defined) compared with non-regular/not pumping, reported at month 2, on both time to BMF cessation (to 12 months) and time to exclusive BMF cessation (to 6 months), using inverse probability weights to control confounding.

USA, 2005–2007.

BMF (n 1624) and exclusively BMF (n 971) IFPS II participants at month 2.

The weighted HR for time to BMF cessation was 1·62 (95 % CI 1·47, 1·78) and for time to exclusive BMF cessation was 1·14 (95 % CI 1·03, 1·25). Among non-working women, the weighted HR for time to BMF cessation was 2·05 (95 % CI 1·84, 2·28) and for time to exclusive BMF cessation was 1·10 (95 % CI 0·98, 1·22). Among working women, the weighted HR for time to BMF cessation was 0·90 (95 % CI 0·75, 1·07) and for time to exclusive BMF cessation was 1·14 (95 % CI 0·96, 1·36).

Overall, regular pumpers were more likely to stop BMF and exclusive BMF than non-regular/non-pumpers. Non-working regular pumpers were more likely than non-regular/non-pumpers to stop BMF. There was no effect among working women. Early, regular pumpers may need specialized support to maintain BMF.