The youth/adolescent questionnaire has low validity and modest reliability among low-income African-American and hispanic seventh- and eighth-grade youth

Abstract

The Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire is a food frequency questionnaire developed for youth aged 9 to 19 years that attempts to assess diet during the past 12 months. It was developed and previously validated with white youth; however, a validation study with fourth- to seventh-grade African-American youth revealed lower validation coefficients. This study validated the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire with 89 low-income seventh- and eighth-grade Hispanic and African-American youth. The youth completed the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire on two occasions 3 weeks apart, and completed up to six food records in between. Most of the reliability coefficients were adequate, except for percent of energy from fat and high-fat vegetables for Hispanic students. Validity coefficients were low, even after correcting for error. The ability of seventh- and eighth-grade low-income African-American and Hispanic youth to report usual intake over a period of time appears to be limited and may not provide a valid measure of consumption.