A new website to support dietary assessment in health research: Nutritools.org

Abstract

Background Measuring dietary intake is difficult and strategies which enable researchers to select the most appropriate dietary assessment tools (DATs) are needed. The DIET@NET partnership aimed to create a central resource to improve the quality, consistency and comparability of dietary data. Methods Development of the Nutritools website was divided into 3 strands. 1) Creating Best Practice Guidelines (BPG) which enables researchers to choose the most appropriate DAT for their work. These were generated using the Delphi method which enabled integration of expert views. 2) Creating an interactive DAT e-library, with the DATs being identified through a systematic review of reviews. 3) Creating an online interface (Food Questionnaire Creator (FQC)) between food tables and DATs. Results The main features of the Nutritools website, includes the interactive Dietary Assessment Guidelines comprising of 43 BPG and a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the dietary assessment methods. The DAT e-library provides in-depth information regarding the tools and validation study characteristics, and results. This information is also provided visually through bubble and summary plots, which allows easier comparison between the DATs. Finally, the FQC allows researchers to create new online food questionnaires or use existing DATs identified from the systematic review. Users can map their questionnaire to the latest food composition databases. Currently the FQC only provides UK DATs and databases but it has the capability to allow for international databases and tools to be added. Conclusions DIET@NET partnership has created the state-of-the-art Nutritools website, www.nutritools.org, which provides guidance to researchers undertaking studies that require dietary assessment. By providing guidance and access to validated DATs, the quality, consistency and comparability of dietary assessment in research can be improved. Key messages: •The Nutritools website, www.nutritools.org provides a central resource for researchers undertaking studies which require dietary measurement. •The Nutritools website, www.nutritools.org provides guidance and access to validated dietary assessment tools.