Cost of diet in relation to nutrient intake of infants residing in an HIV-exposed environment

Datasets for a quantitative study. The study used a self-designed cost of food questionnaire with a single 24-hour recall questionnaire. Any reported household food intake measurements were converted to weight in grams using SAMRC Food Quantities Manual. The SAMRC FoodFinder™ program was used for meal analysis to quantify nutrient intake: total carbohydrate, total protein and total fat, total iron, calcium, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin B12. The estimation of diet cost utilised supermarket food prices and diet diaries method. The prices of food items were collected from three local supermarkets. The cost of diet and nutrient intake were derived by relating the food items and nutrients to food prices per 100g of raw food.

A structured and previously used socio-demographic questions were used to describe the background. For infant feeding practices: breastfeeding data was gathered using a structured questionnaire; comprised of breastfeeding practices based on adapted WHO questionnaires. At the time of data collection, 236 of recruited participants had six-months-old infants. Mother-infant-pairs (n=101) with complete feeding practices and infant dietary data were investigated (HEU (n=46); HUU (n=55)). A sub-study for the cost of diet was conducted on infants who had consumed complementary foods and breast milk substitutes (HEU (n=39); HUU (n=51)).

Minors (younger than 18 years) did not form part of the inclusion criteria of the Siyakhula study.