The study aimed to assess the diet of Serbian adults using a cluster analysis approach and to determine the association of socio-demographic and other characteristics with the membership to the identified dietary clusters. This study represents a secondary analysis of data from the 2019 Serbian Health Interview Survey and it included 12755 adults. We used two-step cluster analysis in order to identify the existing dietary types or patterns in the Serbian population. Univariate and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to test the association of the participants’ socio-demographic characteristics, health status, body mass index, perceived impact of health risk factors and health-related behavior (physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption) with the identified diet clusters. Two diet clusters were identified, “more favourable” and “less favourable” one, the latter being slightly more prevalent. The main differences between the clusters were in the frequency of vegetables’, fruit and milk and dairy products’ consumption. More favourable diet type was associated with female sex, older age, higher income and education level, having a chronic illness/ illnesses, practicing healthy behaviors regarding physical activity and smoking and having a positive attitude towards health impact of diet and social activities. The study findings could help in creating national dietary guidelines as well as health promotion activities tailored for specific population groups that account for their diet’s characteristics.
Škorić et al. (Wed,) studied this question.