The youth/adolescent questionnaire has low validity and modest reliability among low-income African-American and Hispanic seventh- and eighth-grade youth

J Am Diet Assoc. 2004 Sep;104(9):1415-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2004.06.022.

Abstract

The Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire is a food frequency questionnaire developed for youth aged 9 to 19 years that attempts to assess diet during the past 12 months. It was developed and previously validated with white youth; however, a validation study with fourth- to seventh-grade African-American youth revealed lower validation coefficients. This study validated the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire with 89 low-income seventh- and eighth-grade Hispanic and African-American youth. The youth completed the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire on two occasions 3 weeks apart, and completed up to six food records in between. Most of the reliability coefficients were adequate, except for percent of energy from fat and high-fat vegetables for Hispanic students. Validity coefficients were low, even after correcting for error. The ability of seventh- and eighth-grade low-income African-American and Hispanic youth to report usual intake over a period of time appears to be limited and may not provide a valid measure of consumption.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adolescent Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
  • Black People / statistics & numerical data*
  • Diet Records
  • Dietary Fats / administration & dosage
  • Ethnicity / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Fruit
  • Hispanic or Latino / statistics & numerical data*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Nutrition Assessment*
  • Poverty*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Surveys and Questionnaires / standards*
  • Vegetables

Substances

  • Dietary Fats