reproducibility of reported nutrient intake and supplement use during a past pregnancy: a report...
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Reproducibility of reported nutrient intake and supplement useduring a past pregnancy: a report from the Children’s OncologyGroup
Jaclyn L. F. Boscoa, Marilyn Tsengb, Logan G. Spectorc, Andrew F. Olshand, and Greta R.Bunine,fa Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, T3East, Boston, MA 02118b Population Science Division, Fox Chase Cancer Center, 333 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA19111c Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Department of Pediatrics, University ofMinnesota, 420 Delaware Street, SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455d Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, 2101BMcGavran-Greenberg Hall, 135 Dauer Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27599e Division of Oncology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market Street, Philadelphia,PA 19104f Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA19104
SummaryMaternal nutrition and diet have been suggested to play a role in many conditions of her offspring.Studies using food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) have reported associations with maternal diet,but these findings are difficult to interpret because the reliability and validity of the FFQs for dietduring a past pregnancy are not known. We determined the reproducibility of reported diet andsupplement use during a past pregnancy in a subset of mothers interviewed for a case-controlstudy of maternal diet in relation to risk of childhood brain tumors. Cases were Children’sOncology Group patients, diagnosed at age <6 with medulloblastoma or primitiveneuroectodermal tumor from 1991–1997. Area code, race/ethnicity, and birth date matchedcontrols were selected by random-digit-dialing. Case and control mothers completed a modifiedWillett FFQ a mean of five years after the index child’s birth. A mean of 3.6 months later, a subsetof mothers consisting of 52 case and 51 control mothers repeated the interview and comprise thereproducibility study population. The mean intra class correlation (ICC) was 0.59 (range 0.41,0.69) for energy- adjusted nutrients from dietary sources only; it was 0.41 (range −0.06, 0.70)when supplements were included. Agreement for reporting multivitamin use during pregnancy bytime period and pattern was good to very good (kappa= 0.66 to 0.85). Overall, the reproducibilityof nutrient estimates and supplement use in pregnancy was good and similar to that reported foradult diet.
Corresponding author: Dr. Greta R Bunin, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market St, Rm 1472, Philadelphia, PA 19104;Phone: 215 590-1445, Fax 215 590-3020, [email protected].
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Published in final edited form as:Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2010 January ; 24(1): 93–101. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3016.2009.01070.x.
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IntroductionMaternal nutrition and diet have been suggested to play a role in many common conditionsof her offspring including allergy, asthma, cognitive development, and obesity, 1–4 withmost findings coming from cohort studies. Maternal nutrition may also affect the risk of lesscommon diseases of childhood, thus retrospective assessment of diet using case-controldesigns will be necessary. For diseases such as childhood cancers, because they are rare andoccur years after birth, researchers must usually use a case-control study design and rely onmaternal recall. In case-control studies, aspects of mothers’ diet and supplement use duringpregnancy have been associated with the child’s risk of cancer, specifically multivitaminswith lower risk of brain tumors,5–8 leukemia,9 and neuroblastoma;10 infrequent eating ofvegetables with higher risk of retinoblastoma;11 frequent eating of foods containing DNAtoposiomerase II inhibitors with higher risk of specific subgroups of infant leukemia;12, 13
and frequent eating of cured meats with higher risk of brain tumors.14–17 However, theveracity of the findings depends on the reproducibility and validity of the retrospectivelycollected dietary data.
The dietary information (except for supplement use) in these studies was collected usingfood frequency questionnaires (FFQs),18 the primary method for retrospectively assessingdiet in case-control studies. FFQs have been found to be reasonably reproducible and validto assess past adult diet,19–22 but their limitations are also well-known,23 and their accuracyfor assessing diet during a past pregnancy is not well studied. Ideally, pregnant womenwould complete a non-FFQ dietary assessment, such as several 24 hour recalls, and thencomplete the FFQ several years later. Food and nutrient intake would be compared using thedietary assessment that took place during the pregnancy as the ‘gold standard.’ However, thesituation of a large enough group of women whose diet was studied during pregnancy andwho are available for study several years later is rare. In the absence of this ideal situation,other comparisons can be made that begin to address the accuracy of reporting diet during apast pregnancy. However, we know of only our previous study and one other that evaluatedreproducibility of FFQs for recalled pregnancy diet.24, 25 We know of no previous studieson the reproducibility of reported supplement use during pregnancy and no studies that havedirectly assessed validity of reported diet or supplement use during a past pregnancy.
In our previous study of FFQ reproducibility, we concluded that pregnancy diet was recalledabout as well as adult diet generally.24 In this study, women who had completed FFQsduring pregnancy were re-contacted 3–7 years later and asked to complete the same self-administered FFQ or a different FFQ administered as a telephone interview. However, thesample represented a rather select group, limiting generalizability of these results to a morediverse population: Two-thirds of the women were college graduates, 97% were white, andall had completed multiple FFQs during their pregnancies as part of their participation in aresearch study. Further, our previous analysis did not report on the reproducibility ofreported supplement use. To extend the findings of our previous analysis, we performed asecond study of reproducibility, in which mothers who had completed a FFQ as part of theirparticipation in a national case-control study of childhood brain tumors were re-interviewedthree months later. Here, we report on the reproducibility of their reported nutrient intakeand supplement use during pregnancy.
MethodsStudy Population
A case-control study of medulloblastoma (MB) and primitive neuroectodermal tumor(PNET) was conducted to investigate the role of maternal diet during pregnancy.26 Eligiblepatients were diagnosed with MB/PNET in the brain before age six, between 1991 and 1997,
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and registered with the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) through institutions previouslyaffiliated with the Children’s Cancer Group (CCG). (Text deleted)
Controls were identified through random-digit-dialing (RDD) and individually matched tocases on area code, child’s race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, other)and child’s date of birth (within six months for cases with age of diagnosis <1 year, within 1year for all others). (Text deleted) Details about the main study’s exclusions have beenreported previously. 26 The main study population consisted of 315 case-control pairs.
Participants in the reproducibility study were drawn from the 146 mothers of cases andcontrols who completed the telephone interview for the main study between September 1996and June 1997. Three months after completing the interview, each of these mothers was senta letter asking her to repeat the interview and offered $20. Of the 146 mothers eligible forthe sub-study, 104 (71%) completed the second interview. The reasons for non-participationwere refusal, inability to locate and contact by phone, and inability to interview before studyended. One case mother was excluded from the analysis because of missing data. The finalsample consisted of 52 case mothers and 51 control mothers, including 17 matched case-control pairs.
We obtained approval from the institutional review boards of all participating institutionsand all participants provided informed consent.
Data CollectionTrained personnel conducted telephone interviews that included a modified Willett FFQ18
with 112 items to assess diet during two time periods: the year prior to pregnancy and duringthe second trimester of pregnancy. This analysis examined nutrient data from the secondtrimester.
Mothers were also asked about their use of supplements (multivitamins, vitamin A, vitaminC, vitamin E, calcium, selenium, iron, zinc, and folate) in the year before and duringpregnancy. Supplement users were asked about duration and frequency of use, if they weretaking the supplement when they became pregnant, brand and type (multivitamins), dose(individual supplements), month during pregnancy when use began and ended, prescriptionor non-prescription (multivitamins). If the mother remembered only part of the brand/type ofprenatal multivitamin, the interviewer read common product names containing theremembered words from a list to prompt further recall.
The micronutrient content of multivitamins was assigned based on brand/type.18 When thebrand/type was not known or not in the database, the multivitamin was categorized asprescription or non-prescription, prenatal or regular, based on the answers to the relevantquestions. A prescription prenatal multivitamin of unknown brand and a non-prescriptionprenatal multivitamin of unknown brand were assigned micronutrient amounts typical in theyears of the index pregnancies.27–29 For single micronutrient supplements, we used the dosereported by the mother or, if not known, a typical dose (500 mg vitamin C, 400 InternationalUnits (IU) vitamin E, 400 μg folate, 60 mg iron, and 200 mg calcium).
To determine whether a supplement was used close to conception, before most women knewthey were pregnant, we asked mothers who reported use in the year before the pregnancy ifthey were taking the supplement when they became pregnant. Mothers who answered yeswere considered to have used the supplement close to conception. Some mothers who didnot report use in the year before pregnancy stated they were taking the supplement beforethe pregnancy began, in response to the question about when during the pregnancy usestarted. These mothers were considered to have close to conception usage.
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Statistical AnalysesAnalyses were performed for case and control mothers combined and separately using SASversion 9.1 software (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina) and SPSS Base 12.0 (SPSSInc., Chicago, Illinois). Daily intake of selected micronutrients from food was calculated bysumming the content across all foods. The Willett FFQ standard portion18 was assumed asportion size was not collected. Nutrient intake was estimated from food only and from foodplus supplements and the estimates were energy-adjusted using the residual method.30
Reproducibility of nutrient estimates—Intra-class correlations (ICC) and 95%confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to assess the reproducibility of estimates ofnutrient intake from the FFQs in the first (FFQ1) and second (FFQ2) interviews. Thesemeasures were calculated for crude and energy-adjusted estimates of intake from food onlyand food plus supplements.
We also assessed the reproducibility of quartiles of nutrient intake using the weighted kappacoefficient, which accounts for the ordinality of the quartiles. Quartile was assigned basedon the distribution of nutrient intake among case and control mothers combined for analysesof all mothers and based on the distribution of case mothers only and control mothers onlyfor separate analyses. Exact and adjacent quartile agreement was calculated for each nutrient(crude and energy-adjusted) using FFQ1 as the reference. The observed quartile agreementwas compared to the expected agreement of 0.25 for exact quartile agreement and 0.625 foradjacent quartile agreement using a one-sample proportion test with alpha set at 0.001because of the large number of statistical tests performed.
Reproducibility of reported supplement use—The agreement of reportedsupplement use between the two questionnaires was assessed by kappa coefficients.Multivitamin use at any time during the pregnancy, use during each portion of pregnancy(around conception, 1st trimester, 2nd trimester, and 3rd trimester), and patterns of use (nevertook multivitamins, started taking multivitamins around conception and continued untildelivery, started taking during the 1st trimester and continued until delivery, and startedtaking during the 2nd trimester and continued until delivery, other) were analyzed. For singlenutrient supplements, only any use during the pregnancy was analyzed because of the smallnumber of users.
ResultsTable 1 shows descriptive characteristics of the reproducibility study population (n=103).Case and control mothers differed only in ethnicity (Hispanic: 25% of cases vs. 4% ofcontrols, p=0.02). As the results in this report did not change appreciably when the analyseswere limited to non-Hispanic whites, we present the results for all races/ethnicitiescombined. Additionally, no systematic differences between case and control mothers wereobserved and, thus, only results for the combined group of 103 mothers are presented. Theoriginal interview took place, on average, 5.0 years (range 0.3, 9.4; SD=2.1) after the indexchild’s birth and the second interview 3.6 months (range 2.3, 8.6; SD=1.1) later.
The reproducibility study population of 52 case mothers and 51 control mothers was similarto the main study population of 315 cases and 315 controls in child’s age at first interview,race and education except that proportionately, there were more Hispanic case mothers inthe subgroup (25% vs. 10%).
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Nutrients without supplementsThe mean ICC for crude nutrients without supplements was 0.62 (range 0.45, 0.72) (Table2). Overall, the ICCs for energy-adjusted nutrient estimates were slightly lower with a meanof 0.59 (range 0.41, 0.69). (Text deleted)
The exact quartile agreement of energy-adjusted nutrients without supplements ranged from39% to 54% and kappa coefficients ranged from 0.32 to 0.57 (Table 3). The agreements forall nutrients except polyunsaturated fat and vitamin B6 were statistically significantlydifferent from the expected of 0.25 at α=0.001. Seventy-seven to 91% of mothers fell intothe same quartile or the adjacent quartile for both FFQs. The adjacent agreements for allnutrients except polyunsaturated fat and linoleic acid were statistically significantly differentfrom the expected of 0.625 at α=0.001. Results were similar for crude nutrients (not shown).(Text deleted)
Nutrients with supplementsThe mean ICC for crude and energy-adjusted nutrients with supplements was 0.47 (range−0.03, 0.69) and 0.41 (range −0.06, 0.70), respectively (Table 2). With supplements,energy-adjusted vitamin E (ICC= −0.02, 95% CI: −0.21, 0.17) and iron (ICC= −0.06, 95%CI: −0.25, 0.13) had lower ICC than without supplements and the lowest ICC of allnutrients. Without vitamin E and iron, the mean ICC for nutrients with supplements was0.49 (range 0.33, 0.70), somewhat lower than for nutrients without supplements. (Textdeleted)
We performed analyses of subsets of mothers to determine whether inconsistent reporting ofsupplement use contributed to the low reliability for vitamin E and iron. For vitamin E,intake including supplements was reproducible for mothers who reported the samemultivitamin in both interviews (n=62, ICC=0.71) but not for those who reported differentmultivitamins (n=39, ICC= −0.08). Four mothers who reported vitamin E supplement usewere excluded from the subset analyses because of their small number. Similar analyses foriron intake with supplements did not reveal an interpretable pattern.
Exact quartile agreement for energy-adjusted nutrients with supplements ranged from 31%to 59% with kappa coefficients ranging from 0.06 to 0.59 (Table 3), and exact agreementsfor all except vitamin E and calcium were statistically significantly different from theexpected of 0.25 at α=0.001. The range for adjacent agreement was 63% to 91%, with allstatistically significantly different from the expected of 0.625 (α=0.001) except vitamin E,calcium, and zinc. (Text deleted) Kappa coefficients were similar for crude (not shown) andenergy-adjusted nutrients (Table 3).
Multivitamin useAgreement for reporting any multivitamin use was 0.71 (Table 4). Agreement ranged from0.66 to 0.85 for time period of use and from 0.73 to 0.75 for the two common patterns ofuse. Of multivitamin users, 63% (60 of 95) consistently reported the same brand/type. (Textdeleted) Individual micronutrient supplements
Agreement for use of calcium and iron supplements was 0.61 and 0.65, respectively (Table4). No mothers reported taking beta-carotene, vitamin A, or selenium and too few reportedtaking vitamin C, vitamin E, or folic acid to permit separate analyses.
Most mothers who took individual supplements did not remember their dose. For example,six of the 27 iron supplement users reported a dose in FFQ1 and four of 22 in FFQ2. Onlyone mother reported the same dose in both questionnaires.
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DiscussionThis study is one of only a few to evaluate the reproducibility of self-reported dietary intakeduring pregnancy,24, 25 and the first to our knowledge to evaluate the reproducibility of self-reported supplement intake during pregnancy. We found that ICCs for energy-adjustednutrient intake from food alone averaged 0.59 (range 0.41, 0.69), while the average ICC fornutrients including supplements was lower, 0.41, with a wider range (−0.06, 0.70) becauseof low correlations for vitamin E and iron. We also found good reproducibility for reportingof use of multivitamins and of iron and calcium supplements, although estimatingsupplement dosages was difficult.
Our ICCs for nutrients without supplements are similar to those from the one study ofrecalled pregnancy diet (range 0.4, 0.8)25 and to those from studies of the general adultpopulation (range 0.5, 0.7).22 Our results for nutrients with supplements are also comparableto those in the general adult population except for vitamin E and iron, particularly afterenergy adjustment. The low correlations for vitamin E with supplements occurred amongmothers who reported different multivitamins in the two interviews. The vitamin E contentof prenatal multivitamins varied from 0 to 30 I.U. and was generally high compared to themedian intake from food (9 I.U.) in this population. Therefore, multivitamins made a largecontribution to vitamin E content and the inconsistent reporting of brand/type may explainthe poor reliability. For iron, the explanation for the poor reliability is less certain. It may berelevant that over 20% of mothers reported taking a separate iron supplement and that thevariability in iron content of multivitamins was large (40 mg to 120 mg) compared to themedian intake from food (14 mg). The fact that the crude ICC for iron with supplements wassimilar to those for other nutrients and dropped only with energy adjustment suggestsmisreporting of iron supplement intake in relation to energy intake, an observation wecannot explain. The moderately high quartile agreement for energy-adjusted iron withsupplements suggests that the low ICC may be due to misreporting by a small proportion ofmothers.
The reproducibility of reported multivitamin use was high for any use (k=0.71); for mosttime periods and common patterns of use, the agreement was good to very good (range 0.66,0.85).31, 32 We know of no data on a past pregnancy with which to compare our results, butsome data are available on non-pregnant adults. In a study of older adults, participantscompleted a questionnaire twice, three months apart, concerning their supplement use in thelast 10 years;33 the observed agreement was good (k=0.78) for average frequency ofmultivitamin use. Although not about pregnancy, the interval of recall and the finding thatmultivitamin use is reproducibly reported were similar to ours.
Iron and calcium had good reliability for any use of these supplements (k=0.61 and k=0.65,respectively). In another study of older adults, Murphy et al. observed similar levels ofreproducibility for commonly used single nutrient supplements,34 although the participantsreported their use over the past year, unlike our study.
The mean interval between FFQs was 3.6 months, thus, our results likely reflect thereproducibility of the mothers’ reported diet and not simply their ability to recall theirprevious responses.22 The reproducibility of estimates of intake including supplements,however, may be overestimated for some micronutrients. Mothers who did not rememberthe brand/type of multivitamin they took and mothers who did not remember the dose ofindividual supplements they took were assigned doses typical of the reported products. Forexample, a mother who did not remember the brand and name of the multivitamin she tookwas assigned the same typical doses for both questionnaires. By assigning typical doses
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when the dose was unknown, we have overestimated the similarity of the estimates from thetwo questionnaires.
Our findings indicate that estimating dosage for supplements in a past pregnancy isproblematic. In childhood cancer case-control studies, mothers are asked to report theirsupplement use during a past pregnancy, at a time when most are not pregnant, unlikely tobe using the same product as during pregnancy, and therefore unable to obtain the brand/type and dose from the label. This is clearly a disadvantage in obtaining accurate dataretrospectively. In our sample, less than one-third of mothers reporting use of singlesupplements could provide a dose and even fewer reported the same dose in bothquestionnaires. Thus, our findings suggest that questionnaires on supplement use during apregnancy several years in the past need not ask about dose because it cannot be reportedreliably; assigning a standard dose would seem the better approach. Other potential sourcesof error in reporting supplement use deserve discussion. Some mothers may haveinconsistently reported their use of individual supplements because they did not understandthat we were asking about supplements apart from multivitamins. Another concern isdetermining the brand and type of multivitamin used. The quantities of nutrients can varywidely between the many brands and individual products within brands of prenatalmultivitamins, both over-the-counter and prescription. As a result, misreporting a brand orwithin-brand type can lead to substantial error in estimating dose. In our study, for example,misreporting a brand or type greatly reduced correlations for vitamin E. Providingphotographs of the bottles and the pills of the most commonly used products might improvereporting.
Differences between case and control mothers in reliability of reporting could introducedifferential bias into studies. However, our sample size was not large enough to assess theimportant question of case-control differences. We hope that future studies with largersample sizes address this issue.
Neither our study nor any previous studies have directly assessed validity of recall of dietduring a past pregnancy. Such a study would require collection of dietary information usinga referent method during the pregnancy. In our previous work, we compared women’s recallof their diet during a pregnancy 3–7 years in the past with their diet as they reported itduring the pregnancy.24 We found that women recalled their diet during pregnancy withsimilar accuracy as in the general adult population.24 Other studies have reported reasonablevalidity of FFQ data on diet as long as 10–15 years in the past.19–22 Overall, these studiesprovide indirect support for the validity of FFQ data in studies on maternal diet duringpregnancy.
As more epidemiologic studies of childhood cancer and other conditions focus on diet andsupplement use during pregnancy, the need for data directly evaluating the performance ofthe dietary questionnaires is growing. Our data reported here contribute to the sparseliterature on the performance of a FFQ to assess diet during a past pregnancy. We observedlevels of reproducibility for most nutrients similar to those seen for adult diet generally.Difficulty in reporting brand and dosage information for multivitamins may havecontributed to reduced correlations for vitamin E, but did not explain the low ironcorrelations. Mothers’ use of multivitamins, including timing and patterns of use, andcommon individual supplements was reliably reported. Our results indicate that data onmaternal intake of most nutrients and common supplements during a past pregnancy can bereproducibly collected in case-control studies of childhood cancers and other rare childhooddiseases.
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AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by grant CA60951 from the National Cancer Institute and by grant P30ES10126 from theNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Funding support was also provided by the COG Grant U10CA 98543. A complete listing of grant support for research conducted by CCG and POG before initiation of theCOG grant in 2003 is available online at: http://www.childrensoncologygroup.org/admin/grantinfo.htm The authorsthank the project managers and interviewers (Kathy Walsh, Anne Goldblatt, the late Jean Rodwell, Mary Rewinski,Christine Plourde, and Sallie McLaughlin) for their hard work and dedication during the data collection phase of thestudy.
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Tabl
e 1
Cha
ract
eris
ticM
ean
(SD
)M
in, m
ax%
(n)
Tim
e in
terv
al b
etw
een
FFQ
1 an
d FF
Q2
(mon
ths)
3.6
(1.1
)2.
3, 8
.6
Tim
e in
terv
al b
etw
een
child
’s b
irth
and
FFQ
1 (y
ears
)5.
0 (2
.1)
0.3,
9.4
Mot
her’
s age
at t
ime
of c
hild
’s b
irth
(yea
rs)
29.2
(5.6
)16
.7, 4
0.9
Mot
her’
s rac
e/et
hnic
ity
W
hite
80 (8
3)
H
ispa
nic
14 (1
4)
B
lack
4 (4
)
A
sian
2 (2
)
Mot
her’
s edu
catio
n
Le
ss th
an h
igh
scho
ol12
(12)
H
igh
scho
ol24
(25)
So
me
post
-hig
h sc
hool
29 (3
0)
C
olle
ge g
radu
ate
26 (2
7)
Pr
ofes
sion
al o
r gra
duat
e de
gree
9 (9
)
FFQ
, foo
d fr
eque
ncy
ques
tionn
aire
.
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Tabl
e 2
Nut
rien
t
With
out s
uppl
emen
tsW
ith su
pple
men
ts
Ene
rgy
adju
sted
ICC
[95%
CI]
Una
djus
ted
ICC
[95%
CI]
Ene
rgy
adju
sted
ICC
[95%
CI]
Una
djus
ted
ICC
[95%
CI]
Cal
orie
s (kc
al)
–0.
63 [0
.50,
0.7
3]
Ani
mal
fat (
g)0.
59 [0
.59,
0.7
0]0.
64 [0
.51,
0.7
4]
Veg
etab
le fa
t (g)
0.63
[0.5
0, 0
.73]
0.70
[0.5
9, 0
.79]
Satu
rate
d fa
t (g)
0.63
[0.4
9, 0
.73]
0.69
[0.5
7, 0
.79]
Mon
osat
urat
ed fa
t (g)
0.67
[0.5
5, 0
.77]
0.68
[0.5
6, 0
.77]
Poly
unsa
tura
ted
fat (
g)0.
42 [0
.24,
0.5
6]0.
64 [0
.51,
0.7
4]
Lino
leic
aci
d (g
)0.
44 [0
.27,
0.5
9]0.
64 [0
.51,
0.7
4]
Ole
ic a
cid
(g)
0.68
[0.5
6, 0
.77]
0.68
[0.5
6, 0
.77]
Om
ega
3-fa
tty a
cids
(g)
0.66
[0.5
4, 0
.76]
0.72
[0.6
1, 0
.80]
Prot
ein
(g)
0.63
[0.4
9, 0
.73]
0.68
[0.4
8, 0
.72]
Ani
mal
pro
tein
(g)
0.59
[0.4
5, 0
.70]
0.61
[0.4
7, 0
.72]
Cho
lest
erol
(mg)
0.65
[0.5
2, 0
.75]
0.62
[0.4
9, 0
.73]
Car
bohy
drat
e (g
)0.
57 [0
.42,
0.6
9]0.
60 [0
.46,
0.7
1]
Die
tary
fibr
e (g
)0.
64 [0
.51,
0.7
4]0.
62 [0
.48,
0.7
2]
Alc
ohol
(g)
0.63
[0.4
9, 0
.73]
0.62
[0.4
9, 0
.73]
Vita
min
A (I
U)
0.51
[0.3
5, 0
.64]
0.58
[0.4
3, 0
.69]
0.52
[0.3
7, 0
.65]
0.58
[0.4
4, 0
.70]
Ret
inol
(IU
)0.
54 [0
.38,
0.6
6]0.
56 [0
.41,
0.6
8]0.
55 [0
.40,
0.6
7]0.
56 [0
.41,
0.6
8]
Thia
min
e (m
g)0.
58 [0
.44,
0.7
0]0.
57 [0
.42,
0.6
8]0.
33 [0
.14,
0.4
9]0.
32 [0
.14,
0.4
9]
Rib
ofla
vin
(mg)
0.54
[0.3
9, 0
.67]
0.63
[0.5
0, 0
.73]
0.42
[0.2
5, 0
.57]
0.46
[0.2
9, 0
.60]
Vita
min
B6
(mg)
0.57
[0.4
2, 0
.69]
0.61
[0.4
8, 0
.72]
0.70
[0.5
8, 0
.78]
0.69
[0.5
8, 0
.78]
Vita
min
B12
(mg)
0.61
[0.4
8, 0
.72]
0.65
[0.5
2, 0
.75]
0.55
[0.4
0, 0
.67]
0.59
[0.4
5, 0
.70]
Vita
min
C (I
U)
0.65
[0.5
3, 0
.75]
0.67
[0.5
2, 0
.75]
0.48
[0.3
2, 0
.62]
0.48
[0.3
2, 0
.62]
Vita
min
D(I
U)
0.58
[0.4
4, 0
.69]
0.65
[0.5
3, 0
.75]
0.51
[0,3
5, 0
.64]
0.51
[0.3
5, 0
.64]
Vita
min
E (I
U)
0.51
[0.3
6, 0
.64]
0.56
[0.4
1, 0
.68]
−0.
02 [−0.
28, 0.
26]
0.04
[−0.
27, 0
.27]
Cal
cium
(mg)
0.63
[0.5
0, 0
.73]
0.67
[0.5
5, 0
.76]
0.44
[0.2
7, 0
.58]
0.43
[0.2
6, 0
.57]
Iron
(mg)
0.50
[0.3
4, 0
.63]
0.50
[0.3
4, 0
.63]
−0.
06 [−0.
25, 0.
13]
0.65
[0.5
2, 0
.75]
Zinc
(mg)
0.51
[0.3
5, 0
.64]
0.54
[0.3
9, 0
.66]
0.49
[0.3
3, 0
.62]
0.46
[0.3
0, 0
.60]
Fola
te (m
g)0.
69 [0
.58,
0.7
8]0.
68 [0
.56,
0.7
7]0.
46 [0
.30,
0.6
0]0.
47 [0
.30,
0.6
0]
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Bosco et al. Page 12IU
, Int
erna
tiona
l Uni
ts.
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 8.
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Bosco et al. Page 13
Tabl
e 3
Nut
rien
ts
With
out s
uppl
emen
tsW
ith su
pple
men
ts
Wei
ghte
d ka
ppa
[95%
CI]
Exa
ct a
gree
men
tbA
djac
ent a
gree
men
tcW
eigh
ted
kapp
a [9
5% C
I]E
xact
agr
eem
entb
Adj
acen
t agr
eem
entc
Ani
mal
fat (
g)0.
49 [0
.37,
0.6
0]48
%91
%
Veg
etab
le fa
t (g)
0.48
[0.3
5, 0
.61]
52%
87%
Satu
rate
d fa
t (g)
0.46
[0.3
4, 0
.58]
46%
89%
Mon
osat
urat
ed fa
t (g)
0.57
[0.4
6, 0
.68]
55%
93%
Poly
unsa
tura
ted
fat (
g)0.
27 [0
.14,
0.4
1]39
%78
%
Lino
leic
aci
d (g
)0.
31 [0
.17,
0.4
5]42
%78
%
Ole
ic a
cid
(g)
0.56
[0.4
5, 0
.66]
52%
93%
Om
ega
3-fa
tty a
cids
(g)
0.45
[0.3
1, 0
.59]
54%
84%
Prot
ein
(g)
0.51
[0.3
9, 0
.62]
51%
90%
Ani
mal
pro
tein
(g)
0.46
[0.3
4, 0
.59]
49%
86%
Cho
lest
erol
(mg)
0.44
[0.3
2, 0
.56]
45%
88%
Car
bohy
drat
e (g
)0.
49 [0
.37,
0.6
0]49
%88
%
Die
tary
fibr
e (g
)0.
41 [0
.28,
0.5
4]45
%84
%
Alc
ohol
(g)
0.40
[0.2
7, 0
.54]
48%
83%
Vita
min
A (I
U)
0.41
[0.2
8, 0
.53]
42%
86%
0.45
[0.3
3, 0
.58]
46%
87%
Ret
inol
(IU
)0.
49 [0
.35,
0.6
2]56
%84
%0.
36 [0
.23,
0.5
0]43
%80
%
Thia
min
e (m
g)0.
35 [0
.22,
0.4
8]40
%81
%0.
41 [0
.27,
0.5
5]52
%80
%
Rib
ofla
vin
(mg)
0.33
[0.1
8, 0
.47]
46%
77%
0.32
[0.1
8, 0
.47]
43%
79%
Vita
min
B6
(mg)
0.37
[0.2
5, 0
.50]
39%
85%
0.39
[0.2
6, 0
.53]
47%
82%
Vita
min
B12
(mg)
0.42
[0.2
8, 0
.56]
52%
81%
0.39
[0.2
6, 0
.53]
47%
85%
Vita
min
C (I
U)
0.53
[0.4
1, 0
.65]
54%
87%
0.59
[0.4
7, 0
.70]
59%
91%
Vita
min
D(I
U)
0.39
[0.2
5, 0
.53]
49%
81%
0.42
[0.2
8, 0
.55]
49%
85%
Vita
min
E (I
U)
0.38
[0.2
5, 0
.52]
45%
83%
0.06
[−0.
09. 0
.20]
31%
63%
Cal
cium
(mg)
0.44
[0.3
1, 0
.57]
49%
83%
0.27
[0.1
2, 0
.42]
39%
76%
Iron
(mg)
0.39
[0.2
5, 0
.53]
50%
80%
0.45
[0.3
1, 0
.59]
52%
83%
Zinc
(mg)
0.32
[0.1
8, 0
.46]
41%
79%
0.35
[0.2
0, 0
.49]
48%
75%
Fola
te (m
g)0.
45 [0
.32,
0.5
9]51
%85
%0.
34 [0
.20,
0.4
8]44
%79
%
a FFQ
1 us
ed a
s ref
eren
ce.
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 8.
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Bosco et al. Page 14b Ex
act a
gree
men
t for
all
nutri
ents
exc
ept p
olyu
nsat
urat
ed fa
t, vi
tam
in B
6 w
ithou
t sup
plem
ents
, vita
min
E w
ith su
pple
men
ts a
nd c
alci
um w
ith su
pple
men
ts w
ere
stat
istic
ally
sign
ifica
nt a
t α =
0.0
01.
c Adj
acen
t agr
eem
ent f
or a
ll nu
trien
ts e
xcep
t pol
yuns
atur
ated
fat,
linol
eic
acid
, vita
min
E w
ith su
pple
men
ts, c
alci
um w
ith su
pple
men
ts a
nd z
inc
with
supp
lem
ents
wer
e st
atis
tical
ly si
gnifi
cant
at α
= 0
.001
.
IU, I
nter
natio
nal U
nits
. FFQ
, foo
d fr
eque
ncy
ques
tionn
aire
.
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 8.
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Bosco et al. Page 15
Tabl
e 4
Supp
lem
ent
FFQ
1FF
Q2
Agr
eem
ent
n%
n%
Kap
pa [9
5% C
I]
Mul
tivita
min
s any
use
dur
ing
preg
nanc
y97
95%
9694
%0.
71 [0
.40,
1.0
0]
Ti
me
perio
d
Con
cept
ion
3938
%41
40%
0.77
[0.6
5, 0
.90]
Firs
t trim
este
r91
89%
9088
%0.
66 [0
.42.
0.8
9]
Seco
nd tr
imes
ter
9593
%95
93%
0.85
[0.6
4, 1
.00]
Third
trim
este
r91
88%
9390
%0.
80 [0
.60,
0.9
9]
Pa
ttern
Nev
er5
5%5
5%_b
Star
ting
at c
once
ptio
n39
38%
4039
%0.
73 [0
.60,
0.8
7]
Star
ting
at fi
rst t
rimes
ter
4847
%47
46%
0.75
[0.6
2, 0
.88]
Star
ting
at se
cond
trim
este
r2
2%5
5%_b
Oth
er7
7%4
4%_b
Tota
l10
198
%10
198
%0.
68 [0
.52,
0.8
5]
Vita
min
C7
7%5
5%_b
Vita
min
E3
3%1
1%_b
Folic
aci
d6
6%5
5%_b
Iron
2726
%22
22%
0.65
[0.4
8, 0
.82]
Cal
cium
1818
%12
12%
0.61
[0.3
9, 0
.83]
a Don
’t K
now
’ res
pons
es tr
eate
d as
mis
sing
val
ues.
b Not
cal
cula
ted
due
to fe
wer
than
10
mot
hers
repo
rting
use
.
FFQ
, foo
d fr
eque
ncy
ques
tionn
aire
.
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 March 8.