Respondent Characteristics and Dietary Intake Data Collected Using Web-Based and Traditional Nutrition Surveillance Approaches: Comparison and Usability Study

Abstract

Background There are many constraints to conducting national food consumption surveys for national nutrition surveillance, including cost, time, and participant burden. Validated web-based dietary assessment technologies offer a potential solution to many of these constraints. Objective This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using a previously validated, web-based, 24-hour recall dietary assessment tool (Foodbook24) for nutrition surveillance by comparing the demographic characteristics and the quality of dietary intake data collected from a web-based cohort of participants in Ireland to those collected from the most recent Irish National Adult Nutrition Survey (NANS). Methods Irish adult participants (aged ≥18 years) were recruited to use Foodbook24 (a web-based tool) between March and October 2016. Demographic and dietary intake (assessed by means of 2 nonconsecutive, self-administered, 24-hour recalls) data were collected using Foodbook24. Following the completion of the study, the dietary intake data collected from the web-based study were statistically weighted to represent the age-gender distribution of intakes reported in the NANS (2008-2010) to facilitate the controlled comparison of intake data. The demographic characteristics of the survey respondents were investigated using descriptive statistics. The controlled comparison of weighted mean daily nutrient intake data collected from the Foodbook24 web-based study (329 plausible reporters of a total of 545 reporters) and the mean daily nutrient intake data collected from the NANS (1051 plausible reporters from 1500 reporters) was completed using the Wilcoxon–Mann-Whitney U test in Creme Nutrition software. Results Differences between the demographic characteristics of the survey participants across the 2 surveys were observed. Notable differences included a lower proportion of adults aged ≥65 years and a higher proportion of females who participated in the web-based Foodbook24 study relative to the NANS study (P<.001). Similar ranges of mean daily intake for the majority of nutrients and food groups were observed (eg, energy [kilocalorie per day] and carbohydrate [gram per day]), although significant differences for some nutrients (eg, riboflavin [mg/10 MJ], P<.001 and vitamin B12 [µg/10 MJ], P<.001) and food groups were identified. A high proportion of participants (200/425, 47.1%) reported a willingness to continue using Foodbook24 for an additional 6 months. Conclusions These findings suggest that by using targeted recruitment strategies in the future to ensure the recruitment of a more representative sample, there is potential for web-based methodologies such as Foodbook24 to be used for nutrition surveillance efforts in Ireland.

HRQoL and nutritional well-being dissimilarities between two different online collection methods: Value for digital health implementation

“…Noteworthy, a higher proportion of the NUTRiMDEA study participants were females. These results confirm findings from previous web-based nutritional or health studies, 14 , 15 , 51 – 54 showing that females are more likely to volunteer for nutrition or health-related research studies and they may be the population group most interested in their health. The mean age coincides with other intervention studies, 13 , 54 , 55 being the decade of 40 the one with the largest population.…”

Potential of existing online 24-h dietary recall tools for national dietary surveys

“…Finally, the aim of this review was to focus on online 24-h DR tools, but technologies are moving rapidly and other technologies, in particular smartphone applications with visual recognition could evolve quickly and be validated for use in large-scale surveys. Likewise, some new validation studies (93,(125)(126)(127)(128) or user's usability studies (77,128) have been published since 2019, after the literature search conducted for this paper. Those articles published since 2019, not described in detail in this paper, are related to tools which were already described in this paper.…”

“…Except four tools (G, H, K andf M), all have an integrated food composition database, allowing for automatic assessment of individual food and nutrient intakes for the researcher. Eleven tools (A-C, F, G, I-K, M, O and R) have a functionality to provide the respondent with a summary of their dietary intakes and for some tools, dietary advice (75)(76)(77)(78) . While four tools (E, I, L and R) collect food intake data only, some tools collect other information such as dietary supplements (A, D, F, J and O), the level of physical activity (via a questionnaire) (B, C, K, M, N and Q), anthropometry (B, C, K, M and N), sleeping habits (A) or other information on food habits (G, H, K, M, N, P and Q).…”

National Food Intake Assessment: Technologies to Advance Traditional Methods

“…Web-based assessment methods are better suited for study populations with higher technological literacy and reliable access to internet service (23). Segments of the population, such as older adults, may be less likely to participate or more likely to have difficulty with web-based dietary data collection (14,23,79,98). Levels of income and education are also related to the usability of self-administered web-based dietary assessment tools (41,45,68).…”