Systematic literature review of instruments that measure the healthfulness of food and beverages sold in informal food outlets

BACKGROUND

Informal food outlets, defined as vendors who rarely have access to water and toilets, much less shelter and electricity, are a common component of the food environment, particularly in many non-Western countries. The purpose of this study was to review available instruments that measure the quality and particularly the healthfulness of food and beverages sold within informal food outlets.

METHODS

PubMed, LILACS, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were used. Articles were included if they reported instruments that measured the availability or type of healthy and unhealthy foods and beverages by informal food outlets, were written in English or Spanish, and published between January 1, 2010, and July 31, 2020. Two trained researchers reviewed the title, abstract and full text of selected articles; discrepancies were solved by two independent researchers. In addition, the list of references for selected articles was reviewed for any additional articles of relevance. The quality of published articles and documents was evaluated using JBI Critical appraisal checklist for analytical cross-sectional studies.

RESULTS

We identified 1078 articles of which 14 were included after applying the selection criteria. Three additional articles were considered after reviewing the references from the selected articles. From the final 17 articles, 13 measurement tools were identified. Most of the instruments were used in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Products were classified as healthy/unhealthy or produce/non-produce or processed/unprocessed based on availability and type. Six studies reported psychometric tests, whereas one was tested within the informal food sector.

CONCLUSIONS

Few instruments can measure the healthfulness of food and beverages sold in informal food outlets, of which the most valid and reliable have been used to measure formal food outlets as well. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an instrument that manages to measure, specifically, the elements available within an informal one. These actions are extremely important to better understand the food environment that is a central contributor to poor diets that are increasingly associated with the obesity and Non-communicable disease (NCD) pandemic.

[Cloning of kDNA minicircles in different species of Leishmania and its use as probes for diagnosis]

The present study describes the cloning procedure for fragments of kinetoplast DNA minicircles from different Leishmania species and its use for detecting the presence of these parasites. Our methodology was as follow: the DNA of the kinetoplast from Leishmania mexicana amazonensis and Leishmania braziliensis panamensis was extracted, purified and digested with the enzyme Dra I. These fragments were cloned in the site for Hinc II in the plasmid pKS. E. coli was the bacterial strain used for transforming and amplifying the cloned fragments; the selection was carried out in LB medium supplemented with ampicillin. With the clones suspected to be positives we run a Southern blot and total kDNA, from each Leishmania species, was used as hybridization probe. Finally, the cloned purified fragments were tested as diagnostic probes against kDNA from eleven different species of Leishmania and one of Trypanosoma cruzi parasites. After cloning, transforming, amplifying and selecting, we obtained two probes of fragments of kDNA minicircles: one from L. m. amazonensis and the other from L. b. panamensis. Both probes showed high sensitivity for diagnosing cutaneous Leishmania complexes (Mexicana or Braziliensis); however, we observed a low grade crossreaction between some species belonging to the same complex. It is necessary to continue studies in order to obtain subfragments of these probes with a higher grade of specificity at the level of species and subspecies.