| 1) All countries are encouraged to conduct total diet studies to assess the safety and nutritional quality of diet of their population. |
| 2) Countries may want to expand their TDS to address gaps in their current studies as well as emerging food safety and nutritional issues. |
| 3) All countries, particularly low-income countries, are encouraged to explore opportunities for capacity building as well as both shortand long-term financial and technical support to conduct TDS. This should include regional and/or international support through such agencies and instruments as the World Trade Organization’s Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF), the World Bank’s Global Food Safety Partnership, the European Union’s TDS-Exposure Project, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s Food Safety Cooperation Forum, Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Food Safety Network, the Joint International Atomic Energy Agency/Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, the International Life Sciences Institute, and WHO Collaborating Centers for Food Contamination Monitoring. |
| 4) Countries should utilize existing training courses, such as the European Union-supported Summer School for TDS and those sponsored by national governments, as well as resources, such as the Dutch National Institute for Health and the Environment’s software for exposure assessment “Monte Carlo Risk Assessment” as well as hands-on experience and other transfers of TDS expertise among countries. |
| 5) Countries are encouraged to use a harmonized and regional approach, whenever possible, when conducting TDS. |
| 6) Countries should improve and/or develop detailed, transparent and regionally harmonized food classification and description systems that should be the basis for conducting their TDS. |
| 7) In planning of their TDS, countries are encouraged to refer to the criteria for developing lists of priority chemicals and nutrients and to consider the suggested lists of TDS chemicals developed by the workshop. Countries may also wish to refer to the list of typical limits of determination of analytical methods needed to achieve measured results for various chemicals, which was prepared by the workshop. |
| 8) Countries are encouraged to actively utilize the GEMS/Food Databases as well as the GEMS/Food Cluster Diets (in the absence of food consumption data) and contribute to GEMS/Food Databases using the established reporting format. |
| 9) Based on best practice in risk communication, all countries are strongly encouraged to communicate TDS results in a transparent, timely, and easy-to-understand manner to all stakeholders. |
| 10) WHO Collaborating Centers for Food Contamination Monitoring are encouraged to strengthen their role in supporting lowincome countries in the conduct of TDS through capacity building, resource mobilization, and provision of technical expertise. |
| 11) Future international TDS workshops should be organized periodically to share experiences and best practices in TDS. It is also recommended that future TDS training courses be held with a particular focus on building TDS capacity in low-income countries. Workshops and training courses may be jointly sponsored by WHO, WHO Collaboration Centers, and other international and regional organizations and national agencies with experience in conducting TDS. |
