Diet Assessment System for Cancer Control Applications

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is for phase I development of the Graphical Food Frequency System (GraFFS), a comprehensive system for collecting data on dietary behavior, measuring nutrient intake and food use patterns, and generating "tailored" behavioral feedback. The goals are to improve dietary assessment in studies on diet and cancer, and to make it cost-effective and feasible to include "tailored" behavior feedback based on comprehensive dietary assessment as a component of cancer control interventions. The complete GraFFS will: (a) use a graphical, touch-screen, food frequency questionnaire (FFQ)-based method for data collection; (b) generate reports on nutrient intake and food use patterns; and (c) generate "tailored" behavioral feedback. Innovations include: (a) computer-aided self-interview technology that will significantly improve FFQ-based dietary assessment; (b) system customizability, to allow flexibility to capture regional/ethnic food patterns, use different languages, and focus on specific nutrients and food components; and (c) sophisticated and validated methods for tailoring behavioral feedback. Phase I development includes a fully-functional system for data collection, nutrient analysis and a behavioral feedback, and a formal evaluation to compare nutrient intake data generated from the GraFFS to those from a paper-form FFQ. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: There are immediate comercialization possibilities for GraFFS, include both research and clinical applications. Research scientists need improved and flexible FFQ-based dietary assessment. Much larger markets exist for clinical nutritionists, who can use the GraFFS to support dietary evaluation and counseling, and for HMOs, physicians, and helath promotion programs wishing to offer a low-cost, self-help dietary intervention tool.