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Published on: September 18, 2018
Construct validity of a single-item, self-rated question of diet quality
Erikka Loftfield1, Stella Yi2, Stephen Immerwahr3
1Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT.
Objective:
To provide evidence of the construct validity of a single-item overall diet question with a nomological network of self-rated and biometric measures of dietary intake and outcomes.
Methods:
The authors conducted a secondary analysis of survey and biometric data from a cross-sectional sample of urban-dwelling adults. In addition to self-rated diet quality, they examined dietary behaviors, biomarkers of intake, and related outcomes. Self-rated diet quality was treated as a continuous variable to calculate P for trend using regression analysis.
Results:
Self-rated diet quality was significantly associated with variation in both subjective and objective measures of dietary intake (fruit and vegetable intake, P < .001; sugar-sweetened beverage intake, P < .001; sodium to potassium ratio, P < .001), behavior (frequency of fast-food dining, P < .001), and related outcomes (systolic blood pressure, P = .010; diastolic blood pressure, P < .001; and body mass index, P < .001).
Conclusions And Implications:
Evidence supports the construct validity of a single-item measure of diet quality. This single-item question may be a useful proxy for more burdensome measures of overall diet quality.
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