Between April and September 2022, our project team conducted a literature review on
multiple topics related to screener development (e.g. diets and health outcomes, diets and
nutrient intake adequacy, vegan diet patterns, environmental aspects of diets, ultra-
processed plant-based foods, development of diet guidelines, plant-based and vegan diet
guidelines, development of nutrition assessment tools including screeners, overview of
existing tools, including screeners) and produced a report for informing the work of the core
team and the Delphi team of experts.
In October 2022, our core expert team reviewed collected evidence and, in a series of
meetings, proposed and voted for a number of indicators of vegan diet quality under five pre-
identified domains of the diet quality construct: 1. Intake of foods/food groups associated with
health/a lower NCD risk, 2. Intake of foods/food groups associated with a higher NCD risk, 3.
Intake of foods/food groups associated with nutrient adequacy/inadequacy in vegans, 4.
Intake of critical nutrients (not adequate in vegan diets and should be taken as supplements
by vegans), 5. Other eating/food-related behaviors that influence diet quality in vegans.
VEGANScreener development team (in alphabetical order)
Ghent University, Belgium
Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health University of Navarra, Spain
Doctoral candidate Research Institute for plant-based nutrition, Germany
Medical University of Vienna, Austria
The Swiss team joined the project in 2023 and developed the Swiss arm of the clinical study:
