Component Description
The Diet Behavior and Nutrition questionnaire (variable name prefix DBQ) provides personal interview data on various dietary behavior and nutrition related topics. Many of the questions were included in NHANES II (1976-80), Hispanic HANES (1982-84), NHANES III (1988-94), and NHANES 1999-March 2020. Topics included in the DBQ are:
• Breastfeeding and other childhood feeding practices (≤ 6 years);
• Community or government meal program participation for seniors (≥ 60 years);
• School meal program participation (4-19 years);
• Meal planner/shopper/preparer status (≥ 16 years).
Information on individual participant’s role as a meal planner/shopper/preparer at home in the DBQ section were collected as part of the core set of the Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey (FCBS) module. The FCBS module has been included in NHANES since 2007, and was developed in collaboration with the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is designed to collect information on people’s knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs toward nutrition and food choices. The FCBS module has two elements: a core set of questions asked during the NHANES household interview, and a supplementary module asked as a telephone follow-up interview with focuses specifically designed for each 2-year data collection cycle.
In addition to questions included in the DBQ section, the core set of questions for the FCBS module collected in the August 2021-August 2023 survey cycle also included questions at the participant’s family level. For example, family monthly income and family assets, food expenditures, as well as the family’s participation on federal food assistance programs. The family food expenditures data are included in the Consumer Behavior (CBQ) section, while the monthly income and family assets data are included in the Income (INQ) section, and food program participation data are included in the Food Security (FSQ) section.
Data from the phone follow-up FCBS supplementary module are to be released in separate files and made available on the NHANES website as well. Similar to other datasets created from the NHANES August 2021-August 2023 cycle, all FCBS related data files can be linked by the respondent sequence number (SEQN). For more information on the other FCBS related data, refer to the documentation accompanying the datasets.
Eligible Sample
The target age groups for individual questions in this section vary by the topic. For example, the questions pertaining to infant nutrition and breastfeeding were asked of proxy respondents for children 6 years of age and younger; and senior meal program participation questions were asked of respondents 60 years of age and older. Please review the questionnaire and codebook carefully. Frequency counts were verified during the preparation of the file.
Interview Setting and Mode of Administration
These questions were asked by trained interviewers using the Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) system in the participant’s home or by telephone.
Hand cards showing response categories were used for some questions. When necessary, the interviewers read the hand cards to respondents. Participants 16 years of age and older and emancipated minors were interviewed directly. A proxy provided information for survey participants who were under 16 years of age and for individuals who could not answer the questions themselves.
Quality Assurance & Quality Control
The CAPI system is programmed with built-in consistency checks to reduce data entry errors and online help screens to assist interviewers in defining key terms. All data was reviewed by the NHANES field office staff for accuracy and completeness.
Data Processing and Editing
Frequency counts were checked, "skip" patterns were verified, and the plausibility of question responses was reviewed. Edits were made to some variables to ensure the completeness, consistency, and analytic usefulness of the data. Edits were also made to address data disclosure concerns. When a variable was modified globally, as part of the editing process, the third letter in the variable name was changed from a Q (i.e., DBQ) to a D (i.e., DBD). For example, some data were collected using two variables (a number variable and a unit of measure variable) but combined into a single variable for data release purposes.
DBD020, DBD030, DBD041, DBD050, DBD055, and DBD061 (Breastfeeding and other childhood feeding practices)
This information was collected using two-part (number and unit) questions to allow respondents to report the age of interest in days, weeks, months, or years. The released variables were edited to standardize the reported age to number of days, using the following conversion factors: 7 days/week, 30.4 days/month and 365 days/year. If the age for the time stopped breastfeeding (DBD030), or stopped receiving formula (DBD050), or first fed milk (DBD060) was reported as older than 1095 days (3 years), the value was re-coded as "666666." Similarly, if the age for the time first fed formula (DBD041) was reported as older than 365 days (1 year), or the age for the time started other food/beverage than breastmilk/formula was reported as older than 730 days (2 years), the value was re-coded as "666666" as well.
Analytic Notes
These questions were asked as part of the household interview, therefore, the interview sample weights may be used in the analysis for data in this section. However, if the data is joined with other data from the Mobile Examination Center (MEC), the MEC exam weights should be used for analyses.
Please refer to the NHANES Analytic Guidelines and the on-line NHANES Tutorial for further details on the use of sample weights and other analytic issues. Both are available on the NHANES website.