Protective foods recall as a tool for dietary assessment in the evaluation of public health programs for pregnant Hispanics†

This research was supported by the Science and Education Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Grant No. 5901–0410–8–0105–0 from the Competitive Research Grants Office.

The Protective Foods Recall (PFR), a new tool that includes a dietary demerit scoring system, was developed for evaluating nutrition programs for pregnant women of Mexican descent with low incomes. The tool costs less to administer than the 24‐hr, dietary recall because it takes about half the time and does not require calculation of nutrient content. The kinds and amounts of protective foods (foods with high nutrient densities) that the client recalled eating the previous day are recorded on the PFR and scored by the nutritionist during the first interview with the client. Dietary counselling based on the score can be given immediately without further calculation. When compared with the 24‐hr, dietary recall, the PFR was sensitive and specific. The study suggests that the PFR is an effective tool for evaluating nutrition programs for pregnant Hispanics with low incomes.

Key words:

• dietary assessment
• Protective Foods Recall (PFR)
• 24‐hour dietary recall
• nutrition program evaluation
• prenatal diets
• Hispanic diets
• ethnic diets

Notes

This research was supported by the Science and Education Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Grant No. 5901–0410–8–0105–0 from the Competitive Research Grants Office.