Food & Health Alliance

The aim of this review was to investigate dietary interventions in BME groups and to recommend which interventions and models might be most relevant for piloting with ethnic communities in Wales.

The review makes six recommendations for future dietary intervention in BME groups:

1. Evaluations of dietary interventions in BME groups should use rigorous and appropriate research methodologies.

2. If the available funding is not sufficient to include a good evaluation, then every effort should be made to collaborate with other agencies or groups to increase the funding.

3. Evaluated dietary interventions for the general population should consider boosting the numbers of BME participants so that conclusions can be drawn out relating to BME groups. Realistically, this will probably be best achieved by focusing on one of the BME ethnic groups.

4. Evaluation tools need to be appropriate and validated for the specific BME groups, for example, food intake measurement techniques.

5. Any future evaluated dietary interventions in BME groups should explicitly include the theoretical bases used to structure the intervention, and to develop the behaviour change elements.

6. Evaluation of dietary interventions in BME groups should assess cost-effectiveness, whether the results can be applied more generally to the relevant BME group and sustainability (in addition to effectiveness in changing behaviour, nutritional status, or attitudes). Interventions should also incorporate the relevant characteristics of successful projects where these are relevant.