Comparison of two models for the estimation of usual intake addressing zero consumption and non-normality

Abstract

Various models exist for estimating the usual intake distribution from dietary intake data. In this paper, we compare two of these models, the Iowa State University Foods (ISUF) model and the betabinomial-normal (BBN) model and apply them to three different datasets. Intake data are obtained by aggregating over multiple food products and are often non-normal. The ISUF and BBN model both address non-normality. While the two models have similar structures, they show some differences. The ISUF model includes an additional spline transformation for improving the normality of the intake amount distribution, while the BBN model includes the possibility of addressing covariates, such as age or sex. Our analyses showed that for two of the example datasets both models produced similar estimates of the higher percentiles of the usual intake distribution. However, for the third dataset, where the intake amount distribution appear to be multimodal, both models produced different percentile estimates.

Keywords:

• exposure
• probabilistic modeling
• risk assessment
• modeling
• statistical analysis
• Acrylamide
• mycotoxins
• other natural toxicants
• alkaloids
• fruit
• potatoes
• processed foods

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Paul Goedhart for developing the betabinomial normal module and Jac Thissen for his support in writing the MCRA software. We also thank Wout Slob for his advice and many helpful comments on the paper. This research was sponsored by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority of the Netherlands (VWA) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality in the Netherlands.