Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the serum folate levels in women of child-bearing age were in the latest results of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey; and how that figure compares to the World Health Organisation thresholds.

Results from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), published in March 2015, show that the mean serum folate level in women of child bearing age (16-49 years) was 20nmol/l. Approximately 16.5% of women in this age group fell below the published World Health Organization threshold for biochemical folate deficiency however, as a result of methodological difficulties the threshold needs to be adjusted to be comparable with the laboratory method used to measure folate in NDNS. The adjusted threshold will be higher than the published threshold and so the percentage of women with serum folate levels below the adjusted threshold is expected to be higher than the published value. A note setting out these points was published on 17 February 2016, alongside the NDNS report.