DIET@NET partnership on a quest to improve the quality and comparability of dietary data in epidemiological and clinical studies

The assessment of dietary intake is a key feature of many epidemiological and clinical studies that examine the role of diet in health. It is also a challenging one due to the complexity of the modern diet and foods we eat, but also because of the limitations of the dietary assessment methods used and issues around choosing the correct tool and/or data analysis methods.

To help address this, DIET@NET (DIETary Assessment Tool NETwork) is seeking expert consensus on the quality standards for the design, measurement and analysis of research studies involving dietary intake. Using a Delphi-based approach, the Standards Working Group will be consulting with nutritional and health experts, in the UK and globally, to identify minimum requirements and best practice guidelines.

The Quality Standards will offer researchers and public health practitioners guidance to consider when designing and conducting studies that involve the collection and analysis of dietary data. This will complement the STROBE-Nut reporting guidelines that are currently being drawn up under the direction of Dr Carl Lachat at Gent University (/library/reporting-guidelines-under-development/#21).

DIET@NET (DIETary Assessment Tool NETwork) is a Partnership funded by the UK’s Medical Research Council and brings together a core group of experts in the field of dietary assessment, nutritional epidemiology, public health and clinical studies from six UK universities (Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial College, Oxford and Southampton) and the Institute of Food Research, Norwich.

The Quality Standards will feature on the Partnership’s www.nutritools.org website which is also being developed as part of the DIET@NETproject to host a Dietary Assessment Tools (DAT) e-library of high quality, expert-rated DATs, together with an algorithm to aid researchers’ choice of the most appropriate tool for their study.

If you have expertise in the field of dietary assessment and nutritional epidemiology and would like to be involved in the Consensus Delphi rounds, or if you would like to find out more about the DIET@NET project or the Nutritools website, please contact Dr Katharine Greathead, DIET@NET Project Manager, at nutritools@leeds.ac.uk