Methodological challenges when monitoring the diet of pregnant women in a large study

Experiences from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

Bibliographic Data

ID15536634
AuthorsHelle Margrete Meltzer (0000-0002-3591-7017, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, corresponding author), Anne Lise Brantsæter (0000-0001-6315-7134, Norwegian Institute of Public Health), Trond A Ydersbond (Statistics Norway), Jan Alexander (0000-0002-2830-2727, Norwegian Institute of Public Health), Margaretha Haugen (0000-0001-5924-5000, Norwegian Institute of Public Health)
Year2007
Volume4
Issue1
Pages14-27
Publication date2007-12-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMaternal and Child Nutrition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1740-8695 • E-ISSN: 1740-8709
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1740-8709.2007.00104.x
PMID18171404
OpenAlexW1572612381
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited43

The aim of this article is to describe the main methodological challenges in the monitoring of dietary intake in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), a pregnancy cohort aiming to include 100 000 participants. The overall challenge was to record dietary patterns in sufficient detail to support future testing of a broad range of hypotheses, while at the same time limiting the burden on the participants. The main questions to be answered were: which dietary method to choose, when in pregnancy to ask, which time period should the questions cover, which diet questions to include, how to perform a validation study, and how to handle uncertainties in the reporting. Our decisions were as follows: using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) (in use from 1 March 2002), letting the participants answer in mid-pregnancy, and asking the mother what she has eaten since she became pregnant. The questions make it possible to estimate intake of food supplements, antioxidants and environmental contaminants in the future. Misreporting is handled by consistency checks. Reports with a calculated daily energy intake of 20 MJ day(-1) are excluded, about 1% in each end of the scale. A validation study confirmed that the included intakes are realistic. The outcome of our methodological choices indicates that our FFQ strikes a reasonable balance between conflicting methodological and scientific interests, and that our approach therefore may be of use to others planning to monitor diet in pregnancy cohorts

Cohort · Cohort study · Consistency (knowledge bases · Environmental health · Family medicine · Food frequency questionnaire · Limiting · Norwegian · Pregnancy · Demography · Diet and metabolism studies · Medicine · Nutritional Studies and Diet · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet