Conference Background
ICDAM is the only international conference solely devoted to improving methods and measures for both diet and physical activity. All surveillance studies monitoring diet or physical activity, and all epidemiologic studies examining those factors in relation to health, depend on the strength of the assessment methods.
Originally, ICDAM was known as the International Conference on Dietary Assessment Methods. Because two key concerns in dietary research—obesity and energy balance—also relate to physical activity, assessing measures of physical activity was a theme of the 2006 conference. Afterward, the planning committee decided to continue to include physical activity as a focus for future conferences, modifying the name to the International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods.
At each of the previous meetings there have been more than 300 participants (sometimes as many as 500-600 in Boston), representing over 30 countries. We expect that at least 600 will participate at a conference held in the Washington, DC area in 2009.
| Theme | Dates | Location | Host and Chairperson(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assessing Diets to Improve World Health | Sept 20-23, 1992 | St. Paul, Minn, USA | University of Minnesota Marilyn Buzzard |
| Combining Theory and Practice | Jan22-24, 1995 | Boston, Mass, USA | Harvard University Walter Willett and Laura Sampson |
| Advances in Dietary, Biochemical and Statistical Approaches | May 6-9, 1998 | Arnhem, Netherlands | Wageningen Agricultural University Wija van Staveren and Elio Riboli |
| Promoting the Appropriate use of Dietary Assessment Tools for All | Sept 17-20, 2000 | Tucson, Ariz, USA | University of Arizona Douglass Taren |
| Expanding the Horizon, Dietary Assessment in a Multi-cultural World | Jan 26-29, 2003 | Chiang-Rai, Thailand | Mahidol University Pattanee Winichagoon |
| Complementary Advances in Diet and Physical Activity Assessment Methodologies | April 27-29, 2006 | Copenhagen, Denmark | Diet Research Foundation, The Danish Network of Nutritional Epidemiologists, Swedish Network for Nutiritonal Epidemiology Berit L. Heitmann, Lauren Lissner, Anna Winkvist |
