Julián-Serrano Sachelly, Koenig Martha R, Wang Tanran R, Wesselink Amelia K, Hatch Elizabeth, Wise Lauren A, Tucker Katherine L
Department of Public Health, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, United States.
Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States.
Am J Epidemiol. 2025 May 7;194(5):1371-1380. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae203.
Food frequency questionnaires require updating over time due to population changes in diet, posing analytical challenges in consistently measuring diet in prospective studies. We compared reliability and agreement between nutrients in versions of the National Cancer Institute's web-based Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ, III vs II) in an ongoing North American preconception study. We invited 51 consecutively enrolled US female participants aged 21-45 years to complete both DHQ versions within a 2-week period in a randomized order. We compared 30 nutrients from both DHQ versions and calculated within-person reliability using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Bland-Altman plots and 95% limits of agreement (LOA) were generated to assess nutrient agreement between DHQ versions. We observed highest reliability in percent energy from carbohydrates and cholesterol (ICCs, 0.88; 95% IC, 0.80-0.93) and lowest for percent energy from protein and vitamin D (ICCs, 0.56; 95% IC, 0.34-0.72). At the group level, all nutrients had most observations within the LOA. Bland-Altman plots showed assessment differences between DHQs for protein, fat, monounsaturated fat, and vitamin D. The remaining nutrients showed good agreement and good to moderate reliability. Some nutrients may require adjustment and calibration analysis before using them interchangeably across DHQ versions.
