DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF DIETARY ASSESSMENT METHODS FOR CULTURALLY DIVERSE POPULATIONS

Culturally diverse populations with variable dietary and disease patte rns provide a unique opportunity for conducting epidemiologic studies to identify the role of diet in the etiology of chronic diseases. The dietary method for epidemiologic studies, such as cohort or case-contr ol studies, should generally be a diet history (or quantitative food f requency) of selected food items consumed during a usual month. Knowle dge of the eating patterns of each ethnic group in the study is needed to develop an appropriate questionnaire. The diet history may be vali dated by collecting multiple 24-h recalls or food records from represe ntative samples of each ethnic group and comparing the mean dietary in takes with the values obtained from the diet history. Examples of stud ies of culturally diverse populations and the development and validati on of the dietary methods are discussed.