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Dietary mineral deficiencies are widespread globally causing a large disease burden. However, estimates of deficiency prevalence are often only available at national scales or for small population sub-groups with limited relevance for policy makers.

This study combines food supply data from the Third Integrated Household Survey of Malawi with locally-generated food crop composition data to derive estimates of dietary mineral supplies and prevalence of inadequate intakes in Malawi.

We estimate that >50 % of households in Malawi are at risk of energy, calcium (Ca), selenium (Se) and/or zinc (Zn) deficiencies due to inadequate dietary supplies, but supplies of iron (Fe), copper (Cu) and magnesium (Mg) are adequate for >80 % of households. Adequacy of iodine (I) is contingent on the …