Food availability in Austria based on household budget surveys

Dietary patterns and nutritional intakes vary across Europe and within countries. This variability reflects the multitude of cultural, economic, geographic and psycho-social factors that can influence food behaviour. Variations in health inequalities among different countries have often been explained by differences in welfare policies and living standards. Comparable between countries information on food availability can be provided by data collected in the household budegt surveys (HBS). The HBS collect data on the quantities and values of all food items available, among nationally representative samples of households. DAFNE is the acronym for DAta Food NEtworking and aims at the creation of a pan-European food data bank based on HBS. This work demonstrates that it is possible to integrate the Austrian HBS data into the DAFNE nutrition data bank and analyses the Austrian food consumption by socio – economic and demographic parameters, to compare these data with data of other DAFNE members. The Austrian food availability by socio-demographic parameters has shown interesting trends within the country and in comparison to the other European DAFNE countries.