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Bias in dietary-report instruments and its implications for nutritional epidemiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2006

Victor Kipnis ,
Douglas Midthune ,
Laurence Freedman ,
Sheila Bingham ,
Nicholas E Day ,
Elio Riboli ,
Pietro Ferrari  and
Raymond J Carroll
Victor Kipnis*
Affiliation:
Biometry Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7354, USA
Douglas Midthune
Affiliation:
Biometry Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7354, USA
Laurence Freedman
Affiliation:
Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel and Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, Tel Hashomer, Israel
Sheila Bingham
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council, Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, Cambridge, UK
Nicholas E Day
Affiliation:
Strangeways Research Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Elio Riboli
Affiliation:
Unit of Nutrition and Cancer, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
Pietro Ferrari
Affiliation:
Unit of Nutrition and Cancer, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
Raymond J Carroll
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Email vk3b@nih.gov
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Abstract

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Objective:

To evaluate measurement error structure in dietary assessment instruments and to investigate its implications for nutritional studies, using urinary nitrogen excretion as a reference biomarker for protein intake.

Design:

The dietary assessment methods included different food-frequency questionnaires (FFQs) and such conventional dietary-report reference instruments as a series of 24-hour recalls, 4-day weighed food records or 7-day diaries.

Setting:

Six original pilot validation studies within the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC), and two validation studies conducted by the British Medical Research Council (MRC) within the Norfolk cohort that later joined as a collaborative component cohort of EPIC.

Subjects:

A sample of approximately 100 to 200 women and men, aged 35–74 years, from each of eight validation studies.

Results:

In assessing protein intake, all conventional dietary-report reference methods violated the critical requirements for a valid reference instrument for evaluating, and adjusting for, dietary measurement error in an FFQ. They displayed systematic bias that depended partly on true intake and partly was person-specific, correlated with person-specific bias in the FFQ. Using the dietary-report methods as reference instruments produced substantial overestimation (up to 230%) of the FFQ correlation with true usual intake and serious underestimation (up to 240%) of the degree of attenuation of FFQ-based log relative risks.

Conclusion:

The impact of measurement error in dietary assessment instruments on the design, analysis and interpretation of nutritional studies may be much greater than has been previously estimated, at least regarding protein intake.

Keywords

Dietary assessment methodsMeasurement errorBiological markers
Type
Part E. New statistical approaches to dealing with bias associated with dietary data
Information
Public Health Nutrition , Volume 5 , Issue 6a , December 2002 , pp. 915 - 923
Copyright
Copyright © CAB International 2002

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