Principles of nutritional epidemiology: objective of nutritional epidemiological research, interpretation, systematic reviews, role of meta-analysis;
• Nutritional epidemiological studies: classification, uses in research, selection of right study;
• Socio-demographic and psycho-social variables;
• Sampling, study size and power of study: types of sampling, variability, sample size, power of studies;
• Food consumption, nutrient intake and the use of food composition tables: food consumption tables and nutrient databases, calculation on nutrient intake from data on food intake and composition of foods, food groups and food scores;
• Household surveys: characteristics of household data, techniques, uses and limitations, using household surveys in epidemiological studies;
• Individual surveys: methods for assessment of present or recent data, measurement error in dietary assessment, energy adjustment, effects of measurement error on validity, adjustment of intake in the distant past, problems of retrospective assessment in population sub-groups;
• Validation of dietary assessment: the context of validation, validation techniques, factors affecting the design of validation studies, statistical techniques and interpretation.
