Monitoring nutritional status and food safety events

Nutrition and Food Safety

The Department of Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) aims to address the burden of unhealthy diets, malnutrition and foodborne diseases, by providing guidelines, integrated services, and technical support, embedding nutrition and food safety into health, economic, and environmental agendas, and promoting access to knowledge and care for everyone.

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Monitoring Nutritional status and Food safety events (MNF)

The Monitoring Nutritional status and Food safety events (MNF) Unit defines indicators and nutrition surveillance systems, hosts and maintain nutrition databases, monitors nutrition trends and measures the impact of country food and nutrition policies. The Unit manages INFOSAN and collaborates with WHE for the management of major food safety events including PHEICs.

News

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21 July 2026

Joint News Release

UN report: Global hunger levels ease for third consecutive year as regional disparities persist

29 June 2026

Note for Media

Forty-ninth session of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission adopts new standards

4 June 2026

News release

Unsafe food causes 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths annually, young children at highest risk

Our work

Groups / Initiatives

FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN)

Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG)

Strengthening national nutrition information systems (EC-NIS project)

Technical Advisory Group on Gestational Weight Gain (TAG-GWG)

Technical Expert Advisory Group on Nutrition Monitoring (TEAM)

Databases

Nutrition and Food Safety Databases

The Global Health Observatory Data on foodborne diseases

Tools and toolkits

Child growth standards

Growth reference data for 5-19 years

Global targets tracking tool

Micronutrient Survey Analyser and other tools

Addressing nutrition in emergencies

Assessing microbiological risks in food

Establishing global nutrient requirements

Measuring child growth through data

Monitoring progress towards global food safety targets

Promoting safe food handling

Assessing chemical risks in food

Establishing global nutrient requirements

Estimating the burden of foodborne diseases

Monitoring micronutrient status in populations

Strengthening foodborne disease surveillance

Strengthening nutrition surveillance

Events

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Strengthening what works: new evidence to accelerate investment in breastfeeding

4 – 5 August 2026

Forty-ninth session of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission adopts new standards

6 – 10 July 2026

Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment on microbiological risk assessment on powdered formulae for infants and young children

15 – 19 June 2026

Calls for

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22 July 2026

Call for data

Food Additives: One hundred and forth meeting – Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)

5 June 2026

Call for data

Food Contaminants: One hundred and fifth meeting – Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)

1 April 2026

Call for data

Veterinary Drug Residues in Food: One hundred and third meeting - Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)

Publications

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Safety evaluation of certain contaminants in food: prepared by the one hundred and first meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)

This monograph presents the safety evaluation of arsenic as a contaminant in food conducted by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)...

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Supporting healthy diets and safe foods in urban food environments

This WHO background document examines how urban food environments influence access to healthy diets and safe food, and how rapid urbanization is reshaping...

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Ensuring competency for providers of breastfeeding support and care

This toolkit supports the verification of competencies among providers of evidence-based breastfeeding support and care, including health professionals,...

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Documents

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The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI) is the UN system’s flagship assessment of global hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition,...

A Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA) on powdered formula for infants and young children was convened in Rome, Italy,...

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