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24-Hour national dietary survey data: how do we interpret them most effectively?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2007

Dorothy Mackerras  and
Ingrid Rutishauser
Dorothy Mackerras*
Affiliation:
Menzies School of Health Research, PO Box 41096, Casuarina, NT 0811, Australia Institute of Advanced Studies, Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Ingrid Rutishauser
Affiliation:
School of Health Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia
*
*Corresponding author: Email dorothy@menzies.edu.au
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Abstract

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Objective

To illustrate the effect of common mistakes when using 24-hour national dietary survey data to estimate the prevalence of inadequate nutrient intakes.

Design

Raw data on nutrient intake from the Australian 1995 National Nutrition Survey were adjusted for within-person variance using standard techniques and corrected for underreporting using the criteria of Goldberg et al. The distributions for six nutrients were compared with current dietary reference values from the UK, USA and Australia.

Setting

A national sample of the Australian population with a 61.4% response rate.

Results

Adjusting for within-person variance reduced the range of nutrient intakes to 66–80% of the raw data range and the proportion with intakes below the estimated average requirement (EAR) by up to 20%. Excluding underreporters further reduced the proportion below the EAR by up to 10%. Using the dietary reference values from different countries also resulted in some markedly different estimates. For example, the prevalence of low folate intakes ranged from <1 to 92% for adult women depending on the reference used. Except for vitamin A and protein, the prevalence of low intakes was invariably higher for women than for men.

Conclusions

Estimates of the prevalence of low nutrient intakes based on raw 24-hour survey data are invariably misleading. However, even after adjustment for within-person variance and underreporting, estimates of the prevalence of low nutrient intakes may still be misleading unless interpreted in the light of the reference criteria used and supported by relevant biochemical and physiological measures of nutritional status.

Keywords

Dietary assessmentEstimated average requirementRecommended dietary intakeWithin-person varianceUnderreporting
Type
Research Article
Information
Public Health Nutrition , Volume 8 , Issue 6 , September 2005 , pp. 657 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

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