The seventh meeting of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Dietary Guidelines Expert Committee (Expert Committee) was held in March via videoconference.
Introduction of new members
The Expert Committee welcomed 2 new members appointed for their expertise in the link between diet and the health of older Australians.
Sustainability Expressions of Interest
The Expert Committee had previously advised that broader expertise is required to support the priority research area of sustainable diets (accessible, affordable and equitable diets with low environmental impacts).
Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for a Dietary Guidelines Sustainability Working Group were open on the NHMRC website from 5 February to 5 March 2024. The Expert Committee were advised that the NHMRC is currently reviewing the applications and declarations of interest from those who responded to the EOI.
Evidence mapping
At meeting 6 the Expert Committee defined principles to select potentially relevant systematic reviews and used these to determine the deidentified reviews to progress to risk of bias assessment. Ahead of meeting 7, risk of bias assessments were collated and mapped against the systematic reviews selected during meeting 6.
Based on the results of these risk of bias assessments, the Expert Committee selected deidentified reviews to progress to the final PI/ECO (Population, Intervention/Exposure, Comparator and Outcome) extraction. Members reviewed each research question and examined the principles around the risk of bias assessments to identify which of the systematic reviews nominated should progress to final PI/ECO extraction. In the next stage of this process, members will be provided with information about the selected systematic reviews mapped to each research question, and this information will no longer be deidentified.
Members also discussed the best approach for the assessment of quality for the contextual research questions.
Next meeting
The next Expert Committee meeting is scheduled for April 2024. Members will discuss topic prioritisation specifically for dietary advice for older Australians in this meeting.