suboptimal

あまり馴染みのないお米、ゴールデンライスについての記事です。

Potential Benefits Of Golden Rice Would Be Greatest For The Poorest

They found that the usual intake of vitamin A intake was less than optimal — especially in the three regions studied in Bangladesh, where 93 percent of women and young children had inadequate intakes. The situation was not as bad in Indonesia, where 68 and 34 percent of women and children, respectively, had inadequate intakes, or in the Philippines where the figures were 74 and 43 percent. These figures certainly indicate that such suboptimal intakes demand attention.

As expected, the researchers found that the percentages of inadequacy fell the most in their model— particularly in Bangladeshi women and children — when 70 percent of the population switched to golden rice. For those individuals, the poorest group studied, rates of inadequacy dropped from 93 percent to about 20 percent for women and 13 percent for children. And of course, the more beta-carotene the rice contained, the greater the decrease in inadequacy. The models of both the Indonesian and Filipino groups also indicated a substantial decline in levels of deficiency, though not as significant as that seen in Bangladeshis.

（一部抜粋）

http://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/21/potential-benefits-golden-rice-would-be-greatest-poorest-10190

今回取り上げる単語は、suboptimal です。

Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition Reserved, Oxford University Press)によると、 "of less than the highest standard or quality"とのことでした。

『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館）で調べたところ、「最適とは言えない、次善の」と載っておりました。suboptimumとも綴るようです。

ちなみにoptimalあるいはoptimum で「最適の、最高の」などと載っておりました。名詞では、「最適の度合、最適条件」という意味になるそうです。またコンピュータ用語で「最適」という意味で使われているそうです。（Gomez）