Clinical trial NCT03723460: Passive Dietary Intake Assessment Study
Official title: Development of a Passive Dietary Monitoring System to Estimate an Individual's Dietary Intake in Households in Low and Middle-income Countries
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Conditions: Dietary Intake Assessment
Passive Dietary Monitoring
Malnutrition
Keywords: Dietary Intake Assessment
Malnutrition
Lead sponsor: Imperial College London
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Collaborative Research Program
name: University of Ghana
name: University of Pittsburgh
name: Baylor College of Medicine
name: University of Alabama at Birmingham
name: Boston University
name: University of Colorado, Denver
name: University of Georgia
First posted: 2018-10-29
Enrollment: 264
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: The study population comprises of members of households living in rural and urban/per-urban communities in Ghana and Kenya

Brief summary: Currently, there is no accurate measurement of dietary intake. All current methodologies of assessing dietary intake have inaccuracy rates of 30 -70%. Accurate assessment of dietary intake is critical in understanding individual and population nutritional status and monitoring the effectiveness of public health interventions to maintain nutritional health. Estimating dietary intake in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) is remarkably challenging, albeit the high presence of malnutrition and the critical need for evidence-based data to inform policies and programmes on nutrition and health.

This study aims to develop and validate a low-cost and robust system for accurate measurement of an individual's dietary intake in households in LMICs. This innovative system passively recognises food, records intake, and estimates nutrient content of food. The system will be validated in field trials in Ghana and Kenya.

Detailed description: This protocol describes the process of developing and validating a passive dietary monitoring system for the assessment of an individual's dietary intake in households in Ghana and Kenya.

The first phase of the study involves preliminary testing of identified dietary monitoring camera/video devices in a lab setting at Imperial College London under conditions similar to those anticipated in Ghana and Kenya. These conditions may include low lighting, unique foods common to certain regions, communal eating (where more than one person eats from a shared plate of cooked food) and placement of the devices on the body. This is important to guide the design of a suitable passive dietary monitoring system.

The second phase of the study involves an in-depth understanding of household set-up, composition and eating behaviour and testing the feasibility and acceptability of using passive dietary monitoring devices/system in communities in Ghana and Kenya. The data gathered in this phase of the study will inform the choice of the passive dietary monitoring system and configuration to use in the field validation study.

Finally, in the validation phase of the study, the passive dietary monitoring system developed will be set up to record food intake and estimate nutrient content of food across 88 households in Ghana and Kenya. In addition, 24h dietary recall (a commonly used method of collecting dietary intake data in population studies) and weighed food records will be used to estimate food intake in the households. The dietary intake data obtained through the passive monitoring system will be compared to 24h dietary recall and weighed food record data to validate its accuracy.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Household comprising of both parents (mother and father) and at least a child/children under 5 years of age and/or an adolescent child
2. Members of the household eat the same prepared meal
3. Willingness to use a camera/video recording device to capture household food preparation and consumption.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Households not meeting the above inclusion criteria will not be recruited

Primary outcomes:
measure: Dietary Intake Measures
timeFrame: 18 months
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: London
country: United Kingdom
facility: Imperial College London
Study officials:
affiliation: Imperial College London
name: Gary Frost, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Jobarteh ML, McCrory MA, Lo B, Sun M, Sazonov E, Anderson AK, Jia W, Maitland K, Qiu J, Steiner-Asiedu M, Higgins JA, Baranowski T, Olupot-Olupot P, Frost G. Development and Validation of an Objective, Passive Dietary Assessment Method for Estimating Food and Nutrient Intake in Households in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Study Protocol. Curr Dev Nutr. 2020 Feb 7;4(2):nzaa020. doi: 10.1093/cdn/nzaa020. eCollection 2020 Feb.