The course will address methodological aspects involved in the design, conduct, analysis and interpretation of nutritional epidemiological research. You will learn about a whole range of subjects, including intra-individual variation, measurement of error, misclassification, correlated variables, population homogeneity, dietary assessment, validity/reproducibility of dietary assessment, nutritional biomarkers, and analysis issues such as energy adjustment methods and dietary pattern analyses. By studying these, you will gain the knowledge you need to ensure that your nutritional epidemiological research is accurate and the results valid.
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
- Design a well-constructed nutritional epidemiological study
- Explain the basic design considerations for nutritional epidemiological research
- Explain different methods of dietary assessment and their advantages/disadvantages for different study designs
- Explain the reproducibility and validity of different dietary assessment methods
In particular, you should be able to:
- Name sources of variation in the diet
- Use nutrition composition tables
- Use dietary biomarkers to assess dietary exposure
- Explain and utilize different methods to adjust for energy intake
- Use different methods to perform dietary pattern analyses
- Locate sources of measurement errors in dietary data, and apply different methods to correct these errors
- Adjust nutrient intake for total energy intake and perform dietary pattern analyses