Vitamin D Status and Health Outcomes in Human Populations: Determinants, Assessment, and Public Health Implications

Vitamin D plays a fundamental role in human health, supporting skeletal integrity, calcium homeostasis, and a wide range of physiological processes including immune regulation, metabolic function, and muscle health. Despite its importance, vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency remain highly prevalent worldwide, affecting diverse population groups across the life course and representing a significant public health concern, with important implications for both individual health and healthcare systems. Recent years have seen renewed scientific and public health interest in vitamin D, driven by advances in nutritional epidemiology, improved biomarker assessment techniques, and growing evidence linking vitamin D status with a broad spectrum of health outcomes, including cardiometabolic diseases, infectious diseases, and aging-related conditions. However, despite extensive research, important uncertainties and controversies persist regarding optimal vitamin D thresholds, causal relationships with disease outcomes, and population-level determinants of deficiency, as well as the effectiveness of intervention strategies such as supplementation, food fortification, and lifestyle modification. These ongoing debates highlight the need for more robust, well-designed, and multidisciplinary research. The aim of this Research Topic is to provide a multidisciplinary platform to advance understanding of vitamin D status in human populations and its implications for health and nutrition policy. By bringing together epidemiological studies, methodological research, clinical investigations, and population-based analyses, this collection seeks to clarify determinants of vitamin D status, improve assessment approaches, and inform effective and evidence-based public health strategies to address global vitamin D insufficiency.We welcome contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:• Epidemiology of vitamin D status across populations, life stages, and geographic regions• Determinants of vitamin D status, including diet, sunlight exposure, lifestyle, socioeconomic factors, and genetic influences• Advances and challenges in assessing vitamin D status, including biomarkers, laboratory methods, and methodological considerations in nutritional research• Associations between vitamin D status and health outcomes, including musculoskeletal, metabolic, immune, and cardiometabolic health• Precision nutrition approaches and individualized strategies based on genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors • Public health strategies to improve vitamin D status, such as supplementation policies, food fortification, and population-based nutrition interventionsBy integrating insights from nutrition science, epidemiology, and public health, this Research Topic aims to strengthen the evidence base needed to reduce the global burden of vitamin D deficiency and its associated health consequences, ultimately supporting the development of more effective strategies for improving vitamin D status and promoting health across populations. Topic editors: Gavriela Voulgaridou, Paraskevi Detopoulou Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79342/vitamin-d-status-and-health-outcomes-in-human-populations-determinants-assessment-and-public-health-implications