To inform policies that improve food access and health outcomes, Westat conducted the 2022 field test of the second National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS-2) under contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Economic Research Service. This research helps identify what Americans buy and consume, providing critical insights into nutrition, food security, and dietary behavior.
Research methods appear in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis: “Utilization of multiple food and nutrient databases to code food logs in the FoodAPS-2 field test.” The article was written by Westat dietitians Amber Brown McFadden, Deirdre Douglass, and Thea Palmer Zimmerman.
Participants used a smartphone app to record food and beverage acquisitions over 7 days, capturing barcode scans, descriptions, and PLU codes. Westat then applied an advanced, multidatabase approach to link these data to nutrient and food information. Sources included the USDA’s FoodData Central, the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS), and the Purchase to Plate Crosswalk. Additional data sources included Circana and Nutritionix. Coders and analysts further enhanced the data with restaurant, store, and brand characteristics.
“The test successfully demonstrated how diverse food data systems can work together to deliver detailed insights on dietary intake, including portion size, ingredients, and nutrition,” noted McFadden, “contributing additional methods to national food policy and public health nutrition research.”
