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Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development-Knowledge Indicating Dietary Sufficiency (BOND-KIDS)

Overview

School-age (between 5 and 19 years) represents a range of critical stages in both physical and neurological development. Each developmental stage is nutritionally sensitive and demands food security, ensuring stable access to and availability of a high-quality diet to meet nutritional requirements.

The BOND program, an international collaboration led by the Pediatric Growth and Nutrition Branch, began in 2010 with a focus on discovery, development, and implementation of reliable and valid biomarkers to assess nutrient exposure, status, function, and effect. The BOND-KIDS project continues the effort to understand and harmonize biomarkers with a focus on school-age children, to address a range of issues impacting the domestic and global food and nutrition enterprise, including food insecurity.

BOND-KIDS also provides support to members of its key working groups, including researchers involved in basic science,  clinicians providing care and/or conducting research, those involved in public health surveillance, and those charged with the development, implementation, and evaluation of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs/interventions.

Topic Areas

  • Biology/nutritional needs of school-age children and how they impact function and exert effect on key biological systems (e.g., growth, neurodevelopment, endocrinology, reproductive health, etc.)
  • The impact of a child’s psychosocial and related environments on cognitive/behavioral development including food choice, eating behavior, and other pertinent outcomes
  • Assessment of the child’s internal and external ecologies and of which aspects of these ecologies to consider in evaluating the impact of programs/interventions intended to provide nutritional support to school-age children
  • Development of a framework that outlines best practices for:
    • Translating and implementing current and emerging evidence to inform program, policy, and standards of care
    • Ensuring safety and efficacy of programs to address nutritional needs of school-age children domestically and globally
    • Informing efforts to measure the impacts of these programs

More Information

NICHD Contact: Karen Winer

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