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©The Author(s) 2005. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Development of a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire for middle-aged inhabitants in the Chaoshan area, China
Feng-Yan Song, Takezaki Toshiro, Ke Li, Ping Yu, Xu-Kai Lin, He-Lin Yang, Xiao-Ling Deng, Yu-Qi Zhang, Lai-Wen Lv, Xin-En Huang, Tajima Kazuo
Feng-Yan Song, Ke Li, Ping Yu, Xiao-Ling Deng, Yu-Qi Zhang, Lai-Wen Lv, Department of Preventive Medicine, Shantou Medical University, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Takezaki Toshiro, Department of International Island and Community Medicine, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, Kagoshima 890-8544, Japan
Xu-Kai Lin, Shantou Disease Preventive and Control Center, Shantou 515031, Guangdong Province, China
He-Lin Yang, the Board of Health Nan’ao County, Shantou 515000, Guangdong Province, China
Xin-En Huang, Jiangsu Province Cancer Hospital, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
Tajima Kazuo, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Aichi 464-8681, Nagoya, Japan
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to the work.
Supported by the Science and Technology Project Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. 2003C33706, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas (C) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, Culture and Technology, Japan
Correspondence to: Dr. Ke Li, Department of Preventive Medicine, Shantou Medical University, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China. kli@stu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-754-8900445 Fax: +86-754-8557562
Received: July 23, 2004
Revised: January 1, 2005
Accepted: January 5, 2004
Published online: July 14, 2005
AIM: This paper aims to develop a data-based semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (SQFFQ) covering both urban and rural areas in the Chaoshan region of Guang-dong Province, China, for the investigation of relationships between food intake and lifestyle-related diseases among middle-aged Chinese.
METHODS: We recruited 417 subjects from the general population and performed an assessment of the diet, using a 3-d weighed dietary record survey. We employed contribution analysis (CA) and multiple regression analysis (MRA) to select food items covering up to a 90% contribution and a 0.90 R2, respectively. The total number of food items consumed was 523 (443 in the urban and 417 in the rural population) and the intake of 29 nutrients was calculated according to the actual consumption by foods/ recipes.
RESULTS: The CA selected 233, 194, and 183 foods/recipes for the combined, the urban and the rural areas, respectively, and then 196, 157, and 160 were chosen by the MRA. Finally, 125 foods/recipes were selected for the final questionnaire. The frequencies were classified into eight categories and standard portion sizes were also calculated.
CONCLUSION: For adoption of the area-specific SQFFQ, validity and reproducibility tests are now planned to determine how the combined SQFFQ performs in actual assessment of disease risk and benefit.
