Objectives: to describe the prevention interventions conducted by the Regional health services to promote a healthy diet.
Material and methods: the database ProSA, which contains prevention interventions conducted by some Italian regions, has been analysed. Programmes identified as «Diet - physical activity» were selected, and the ones that had the promotion of healthy diet in unselected populations as objective were included. Then, the programmes were analysed and described.
Results: a total of 87 programmes were included, 23 of which are certainly conducted during 2013-14. 91% are school-based, particularly targeted to middle schools, and 37% are based on classroom lessons. No programme made any reference to specific evidence, while 11% of them cited scientific generic but relevant papers. 15% of the programmes described some evaluation process, but only 1% has proposed a study design with controls. Limiting the analysis to the region that contributed with the largest amount of recorded programmes, it can be estimated that programmes does not reached more than 0.03% of the general population, and 4% of the school population.
Conclusions: in Italy, there is not a survey system to collect preventive interventions conducted by regional health authorities. The analysis of ProSA, an experimental system, allows us to highlight that the promotion of a healthy diet is based on interventions targeting only the school population and referring to scientific evidence in a very limited way. Moreover, they seem to cover very small part of the target population.