Comparative validation of the Block, Willett, and National Cancer Institute food frequency questionnaires : the Eating at America's Table Study.

By A. Subar, F. Thompson, V. Kipnis, D. Midthune, P. Hurwitz, S. McNutt, Anna McIntosh, S. Rosenfeld. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2001

1,437 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute developed a new cognitively based food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), the Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ). The Eating at America's Table Study sought to validate and compare the DHQ with the Block and Willett FFQs. Of 1,640 men and women recruited to participate from a nationally representative sample in 1997, 1,301 completed four telephone 24-hour recalls, one in each season. Participants were randomized to receive either a DHQ and Block FFQ or a DHQ and Willett FFQ. With a standard measurement error model, correlations for energy between estimated truth and the DHQ, Block FFQ, and Willett FFQ, respectively, were 0.48, 0.45, and 0.18 for women and 0.49, 0.45, and 0.21 for men. For 26 nutrients, correlations and attenuation coefficients were somewhat higher for the DHQ versus the Block FFQ, and both were better than the Willett FFQ in models unadjusted for energy. Energy adjustment increased correlations and attenuation coefficients for the Willett FFQ dramatically and for the DHQ and Block FFQ instruments modestly. The DHQ performed best overall. These data show that the DHQ and the Block FFQ are better at estimating absolute intakes than is the Willett FFQ but that, after energy adjustment, all three are more comparable for purposes of assessing diet-disease risk.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Nutrition and Dietetics, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9522cc6ff443ab0b5ffe6d441a645209de6230fc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

1. Leonhard Held
2. Andrea Riebler

In Nutrition and Dietetics

1. F. Thompson
2. A. Subar

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. F. Thompson
2. A. Subar

Citations in the corpus

• Bayesian analysis of measurement error models using integrated nested Laplace approximations (2015, background): “In fact, both the homoscedastic and the heteroscedastic cases are relevant in practice (see, for example, Subar et al. (2001) or the example in Section 5.1 presented here).”
• FGF23, PTH and Phosphorus Metabolism in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (2011, methodology): “We analyzed the following data that were collected at the baseline visit: demographics, medical history, use of phosphate binders, vitamin D supplements and active vitamin D analogs, blood pressure, anthropometry, fasting blood samples, 24-h urine specimens, and estimated dietary phosphorus, calcium”
• Validation and reproducibility of food frequency questionnaire for Korean genome epidemiologic study (2007, background): “and the reason for this observation has not yet been elucidated (Subar et al., 2001).”
• Relative validity of a semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire in an elderly Mediterranean population of Spain (2010, neutral): “FFQ usually reflect higher estimates for most food groups and nutrients than the reference method((28)), particularly if the FFQ exceeds 100 items((29)), as does ours.”
• Dietary Assessment Methodology (2017, methodology): “adults are the Health Habits and History Questionnaire (HHHQ) or Block questionnaires [87–97], the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Food Frequency Questionnaire (a revised HHHQ) [98, 99], the Harvard University Food Frequency Questionnaires or Willett questionnaires [85, 95–97, 100, 101–107], ”