ArticlePublic health nutrition2025
Validation of NOVA 27 ultra-processed food screener: adaptation and performance in Ecuador.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- What Do Nova and the Ultraprocessed Food Concept Offer to Policymakers? From Updating Dietary Guidance to Regulatory Action and Advancing Sustainable Food System Transitions.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- A call for methodological rigour: suspending systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies on ultra-processed foods.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Review
- From concept to measurement: initial validation of the Ultra-Processed Food Consumption Scale.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2026Article
- Adaptation and Validation of the Nova-UPF Screener for the Assessment of Ultra-Processed Food Intake in Portuguese Adults.Nutrients · 2025Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
objectiveThis study aimed to adapt and validate the NOVA 27 ultra-processed food (UPF) Screener for use in Ecuador by identifying commonly consumed foods, classifying them using the NOVA system and testing the screener's validity in an urban sample and a national food survey.
designA cross-sectional study was conducted in two phases: screener validation with a convenience sample of 327 adults in Quito through an online questionnaire (2021) and assessment of its applicability using data from the 2012 Ecuadorian National Health and Nutrition Survey (ENSANUT-Ecu). The method, adapted from a similar study in Brazil, compared NOVA UPF scores to the 24 h-Recall (24-HR) automated multiple-pass method, used as the gold standard.
settingThe study included Quito's urban population for validation and secondary data from ENSANUT-Ecu.
participantsThree hundred and twenty-seven adults aged 18-64 from Quito were included in the validation phase, and 3510 adults from the ENSANUT-Ecu dataset were analysed in the secondary analysis.
resultsThe screener adaptation identified twenty-seven subgroups of commonly consumed UPF, summarising 90 % of UPF energy intake. Validation results indicated significant agreement between the NOVA-UPF score and UPF intake, with PABAK indices above 0·8 for most socio-demographic groups. Higher NOVA-UPF scores corresponded to increased UPF dietary shares, mirroring patterns observed in the ENSANUT-Ecu dataset.
conclusionsThe adapted NOVA 27 UPF Screener is a valid tool for assessing UPF intake in Ecuador, offering a practical resource for future dietary surveys to monitor and address UPF intake among Ecuadorian adults.
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