Nutrition Monitoring

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Human Nutrition Information Service's (HNIS) 1987-88 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (NFCS), focusing on the: (1) methodological soundness of the 1987-88 survey; and (2) effectiveness of the Department of Agriculture's management of the contractor hired to conduct the survey.

GAO found that: (1) flaws in the methodology of the 1987-88 survey, deviations from the survey's original design, and lax collection and processing controls raised doubts about the quality of the data in the 1987-88 survey; (2) results from the survey were not representative of the U.S. population, since only 34 percent of the households in the basic sample provided individual intake data; (3) some households may have been discouraged by the length and complexity of the NFCS questionnaire and the absence of incentives to participate; (4) poor contract management contributed to cost overruns, delays, and the contractor's failure to complete certain contract tasks; (5) contract costs increased from $6.2 million to $7.6 million and contract completion was delayed by 2 years; (6) the contracting officer's representative frequently exceeded his authority by directing the contractor to forego certain contract requirements and undertake unspecified work, and the contracting officer did not monitor the contract; and (7) the contractor did not complete key procedures required by the contract, which violated internal controls designed to protect the government from fraud, waste, and abuse.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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