Coverage of food intake assessment in the Brazilian Food and Nutrition Surveillance System: 2008 to 2013

Introduction: In Brazil, the Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (Sistema de Vigilância Alimentar e Nutricional - SISVAN) provides continuous data on the nutritional status and food intake of the population user of primary health care to elaborate actions, programs, and policies. Objective: This article describes the percentage of registration in the system, percentage of use, and coverage of food intake monitoring between 2008 and 2013. Methods: This is an ecological study that characterizes the registered population according to federation units, macro-regions, and/or life stages. The indicators used were percentage of registration and use and coverage. The analysis used descriptive statistics, a linear regression model, and Spearman’s correlation. Results: In 2010, approximately 100.00% of the cities had at least one individual registered in the system while the percentage of use was 22.4%. National coverage ranged from 0.13 to 0.4% between 2008 and 2013, with a statistically significant increasing trend. The Midwest showed the highest regional coverage. All life stages presented increasing coverage trend, especially children and pregnant women. Conclusion: Despite the continuous data collection, food intake assessment proved to be incipient, and its distribution in the cities was low. Implementation of the National Food and Nutrition Policy can be enhanced by overcoming central issues, such as physical structure and training of professionals, which prevent the progress of system consolidation.