Discussion Summary: January 2010

Most of you felt that the use of Westat employees as subjects in these studies was inappropriate. While many recognized it was quite possible that the Westat employees who participated may have known nothing at all about the study, almost all of you expressed concern that more details about the subjects was not presented by the studies’ authors. Many of you observed that two separate IRBs approved this work and felt that this fact should indicate an ethical, non-biased study, although all agreed that more disclosure would have been helpful. A couple of you felt that it was possible that Westat employees might actually have been more interested in acting ethically as they are familiar with good research protocol; including them in the study might have made for a better final product.

All of you agreed that showing photos without size labels assigned was preferable to showing photos with labels. Many indicated that as so many people don’t cook and are not familiar with kitchen measures, showing photos with labels would have lessened the accuracy of the subjects’ responses. Also, many felt that subjects might not have believed the size indications if they were shown and, due to embarrassment and/or confusion, might have estimated their consumption downward. Many also expressed support for additional research to test the effect of labeling.

Finally, almost all agreed that, overall, this type of automated 24-hour recall would not be particularly useful mainly because it would be unlikely to be accurate. While an electronic application might mean that more data would be available, most felt that gathering information in a face-to-face format was preferable and would increase accuracy as an RD could assist with interpretation of questions. It was suggested that more research needs to be done to know if unsupervised vs supervised recall data collection is better. A few of you thought that this application could be useful if followed by an RD consultation. Those who prefer answering in privacy would prefer it. A couple of you observed that this type of application could represent a job threat to RDs.