This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu
References
This issue of the Food and Nutrition Bulletin is devoted entirely to the Cross-Cultural Research on the Nutrition of Older Subjects (CRONOS) project, which is a multicentre study of nutrition and related health practices in the elderly of developing countries developed by the Committee on Urbanization and Nutrition of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). It is based on a pilot Reconnaissance project designed to build on the experience gained with two previous studies, mainly in industrialized countries. The end product is a detailed protocol for a multicentre study that appears at the end of this issue [1].
One of the previous studies providing the background for CRONOS is the IUNS study Food Habits in Later Life (FHLL) [2], conducted in 10 sites, of which only 2 were in developing countries. This study provided such an enormous amount of useful information that full publication in conventional print form would have been prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, it has been made available in full on CD-ROM. The other prior study is the EURONUT-SENECA study in 19 sites in 12 European countries, which has also been published in full [3].
While the two studies provided a good picture of the food habits of elderly populations in industrialized countries, the IUNS Committee on Nutrition and Aging was eager to promote the extension of investigations of this type to the growing populations of elderly people in a broad range of developing countries. To facilitate this effort, the Committee organized the pilot Reconnaissance project described in this issue. Its product is the standardized protocol presented in this issue [1], one that is designed to be not only multicentred but also multidisciplinary and to include both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
The Bulletin is pleased to present the CRONOS protocol and the background discussions preceding it. We hope that it will be implemented by centres in a range of developing countries and the results collated and compared. Such an analysis will be as valuable to developing countries as the EURONUT-SENECA and IUNS-FHLL studies have been for policy formation, planning, training, and implementation of programmes to benefit the elderly in industrialized countries.
Nevin S. Scrimshaw
Editor
1. Gross R. ed. CRONOS (Cross-Cultural Research on the Nutrition of Older Subjects). 3rd ed. Food Nutr Bull 1997;18:267-303.
2. Wahlqvist ML, Davies L, Hsu-Hage BH-H, Kouris-Blazos A, Scrimshaw NS, Steen B. van Staveren WA, eds. Food habits in later life: descriptions of elderly communities and lessons learned. Jointly published on CD-ROM by the United Nations University Press, Tokyo, and the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1996.
3. de Groot LCPGM, van Staveren WA, Hautvast JAGJ, eds. EURONUT-SENECA. Eur J Clin Nutr 1991; 45(suppl 3)
