McGill School of Human Nutrition Postdoc Didier Brassard Awarded Prix Relève Étoile du FRQS
Didier Brassard, a postdoctoral candidate at McGill's School of Human Nutrition supervised by Associate Professor Stéphanie Chevalier, has been awarded the Prix Relève Étoile du Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) for July 2023. This important and competitive recognition of a publication in the health domain is awarded only once per month across the province.
In 2019, Health Canada published a new Canada's Food Guide (CFG). From a public health standpoint, it is very useful to know the degree of adherence to the CFG recommendations within the population. For example, this knowledge could help establish which recommendations are least followed and should be prioritized and promoted. It could also identify groups who could benefit from a targeted effort to increase their adherence. In collaboration with Health Canada, a tool called the Healthy Eating Food Index (HEFI)-2019 has been developed to assess this adherence.
Didier Brassard and colleagues assessed the quality of the HEFI-2019 using dietary data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey, revealing that the tool is successful in measuring adherence to the GAC's recommendations on healthy food choices. This work will form the basis of multiple research studies aimed at documenting adherence to dietary recommendations, as well as the relationship between adherence and population health.