American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 142, No. 3: 342-352
Copyright © 1995 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
other |
Misclassification of Nutrient and Energy Intake from Use of Closed-ended Questions in Epidemiologic Research
1Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, The University of Tennessee Memphis, TN.
2Department of Hematology/Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Memphis, TN.
Reprint requests to Dr. Frances A. Tylavsky, Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, The University of Tennessee, 877 Madison Avenue, Suite 330, Memphis, TN 38163.
The authors investigated the effect of collecting food frequency intake data using questionnaires that record response intervals rather than exact frequencies of consumption. Measures of energy and 24 nutrients were calculated using both types of frequency data for subjects' mean intakes, rank classifications and group mean values. Frequency data obtained between 1987 and 1989 using the open-ended Health Habits and History Questionnaire (HHHQ) developed by Block and associates at the National Cancer Institute were recoded into the interval response formats used by the computer-scannable version of the HHHQ and into the format used in the food frequency questionnaire developed by Willett for the Nurses' Health Study and other studies. Compared with the open-ended HHHQ, for otherwise identical data sets, the closed-ended HHHQ and Willett response categories produced significantly different (p < 0.05) measures of intake on the individual level for 18 (72%) (HHHQ) and 16 (64%) (Willett) of the 25 nutrient and energy measures studied, and they ranked 13-53% (HHHQ) and 16-52% (Willett) of subjects in different quintiles for the various measures. Use of food frequency questionnaires with closed-ended response categories causes nondifferential misclassification that could bias study results. To reduce such misclassification in epidemiologic studies, the authors recommend that food frequency questionnaires obtain exact frequencies of intake for measurement of diet exposure, and they describe an open-ended questionnaire layout which does so and also permits computer scanning of data. Am J Epidemiol 1995;142:342–52.
bias (epidemiology); diet surveys; epidemiologic methods; nutrition surveys; questionnaires
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. L. Molag, J. H. M. de Vries, M. C. Ocke, P. C. Dagnelie, P. A. van den Brandt, M. C. J. F. Jansen, W. A. van Staveren, and P. van't Veer Design Characteristics of Food Frequency Questionnaires in Relation to Their Validity Am. J. Epidemiol., December 15, 2007; 166(12): 1468 - 1478. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. S. Gavaler and E. Rosenblum Predictors of Postmenopausal Body Mass Index and Waist Hip Ratio in the Oklahoma Postmenopausal Health Disparities Study J. Am. Coll. Nutr., August 1, 2003; 22(4): 269 - 276. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. F. Subar, D. Midthune, M. Kulldorff, C. C. Brown, F. E. Thompson, V. Kipnis, and A. Schatzkin Evaluation of Alternative Approaches to Assign Nutrient Values to Food Groups in Food Frequency Questionnaires Am. J. Epidemiol., August 1, 2000; 152(3): 279 - 286. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|