Dietary assessment toolkits: an overview

Authors: DAO, MARIA - Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center On Aging At Tufts University; SUBAR, AMY - National Institutes Of Health (NIH); WARTHON-MEDINA, MARISOL - University Of Leeds; CADE, JANET - University Of Leeds; BURROWS, TRACY - University Of Newcastle; GOLLEY, REBECCA - Flinders University; FOROUHI, NITA - University Of Cambridge; PEARCE, MATTHEW - University Of Cambridge; HOMES, BRIDGET - Danone Institute International

Submitted to: Public Health Nutrition
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/24/2018
Publication Date: 11/15/2018
Citation: Dao, M.C., Subar, A.F., Warthon-Medina, M., Cade, J.E., Burrows, T., Golley, R.K., Forouhi, N.G., Pearce, M., Homes, B.A. 2018. Dietary assessment toolkits: an overview. Public Health Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980018002951.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980018002951

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Objective: A wide variety of methods are available to assess dietary intake, each one with different strengths and weaknesses. Researchers face multiple challenges when diet and nutrition need to be accurately assessed, in particular in the selection of the most appropriate dietary assessment method for their study. The goal of this collaborative work is to present a collection of available resources for dietary assessment implementation. Design: As a follow up to the 9th International Conference on Diet and Physical Activity Methods held in 2015, developers of dietary assessment toolkits agreed to collaborate in the preparation of the present article, which provides an overview of dietary assessment toolkits. The toolkits presented include: the Diet, Anthropometry and Physical Activity Measurement Toolkit (DAPA) (UK); The National Cancer Institute's Dietary Assessment Primer (USA); The Nutritools website (UK); the Australasian Child and Adolescent Obesity Research Network (ACAORN) method selector (Australia), and the Danone Dietary Assessment Toolkit (DanoneDAT) (France). An at-a-glance summary of features and comparison of the toolkits is provided. Setting: Not applicable. Subjects: Not applicable. Results: The resulting article contains general background on dietary assessment, along with a summary of each of the included toolkits, a feature comparison table, and direct links to each toolkit, all of which are freely available online. Conclusions: This overview of dietary assessment toolkits provides comprehensive information to aid users in the selection and implementation of the most appropriate dietary assessment method, or combination of methods, with the goal of collecting the highest quality dietary data possible.