Perspective: A Framework for Addressing Dynamic Food Consumption Processes.

The study of food consumption, diet, and related concepts is motivated by diverse goals, including understanding why food consumption impacts our health, and why we eat the foods we do. These varied motivations can make it challenging to define and measure consumption, as it can be specified across nearly infinite dimensions-from micronutrients to carbon footprint to food preparation. This challenge is amplified by the dynamic nature of food consumption processes, with the underlying phenomena of interest often based on the nature of repeated interactions with food occurring over time. This complexity underscores a need to not only improve how we measure food consumption but is also a call to support theoreticians in better specifying what, how, and why food consumption occurs as part of processes, as a prerequisite step to rigorous measurement. The purpose of this Perspective article is to offer a framework, the consumption process framework, as a tool that researchers in a theoretician role can use to support these more robust definitions of consumption processes. In doing so, the framework invites theoreticians to be a bridge between practitioners who wish to measure various aspects of food consumption and methodologists who can develop measurement protocols and technologies that can support measurement when consumption processes are clearly defined. In the paper we justify the need for such a framework, introduce the consumption process framework, illustrate the framework via a use case, and discuss existing technologies that enable the use of this framework and, by extension, more rigorous study of consumption. This consumption process framework demonstrates how theoreticians could fundamentally shift how food consumption is defined and measured towards more rigorous study of what, how, and why food is eaten as part of dynamic processes and a deeper understanding of linkages between behavior, food, and health.

Qualifying and quantifying the precision medicine rhetoric.

BACKGROUND: With the rise of precision medicine efforts worldwide, our study objective was to describe and map the emerging precision medicine landscape. A Google search was conducted between June 19, 2017 to July 20, 2017 to examine how "precision medicine" and its analogous terminology were used to describe precision medicine efforts. Resulting web-pages were reviewed for geographic location, data type(s), program aim(s), sample size, duration, and the key search terms used and recorded in a database. Descriptive statistics were applied to quantify terminology used to describe specific precision medicine efforts. Qualitative data were analyzed for content and patterns. RESULTS: Of the 108 programs identified through our search, 84% collected only biospecimen(s) and, of those that collected at least two data types, 42% mentioned both Electronic Health Records (EHR) and biospecimen. Given the majority of efforts limited to biospecimen(s) use, genetic research seems to be prioritized in association with precision medicine. Roughly, 54% were found to collect two or more data types, which limits the output of information that may contribute to understanding of the interplay of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Over half were government-funded with roughly a third being industry-funded. Most initiatives were concentrated in the United States, Europe, and Asia. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first study to map and qualify the global precision medicine landscape. Our findings reveal that precision medicine efforts range from large model cohort studies involving multidimensional, longitudinal data to biorepositories with a collection of blood samples. We present a spectrum where past, present, and future PM-like efforts can fall based on their scope and potential impact. If precision medicine is based on genes, lifestyle and environmental factors, we recommend programs claiming to be precision medicine initiatives to incorporate multidimensional data that can inform a holistic approach to healthcare.