Learn Best Practices for NHANES Research with ASN

A recent article from the journal, Science, notes that some journals have updated their policies on the types of studies which they will accept using public use datasets, including The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). ASN would like to ensure that nutrition researchers have access to the most up-to-date resources for conducting research using NHANES to best position their paper submissions for acceptance.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) provides nationally representative data which is used for both public policy and epidemiological research. What We Eat in America (WWEIA), the dietary survey within NHANES, is the primary data source for national dietary surveillance in the U.S.¹ NHANES data is publicly available with transparent documentation on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Publications using research conducted with WWEIA, NHANES data inform the nutrition community about the food and nutrient intake of the U.S. population. 

Resources for Researchers

ASN offers on demand courses through DiscoverNUTRITION, the Society’s online learning platform, providing a wealth of information about NHANES and how to most effectively conduct research with WWEIA data.

The session, Best Practices for Using Data from Cross-Sectional Surveillance Studies Including NHANES, organized by ASN Editors and presented at NUTRITION 2024, is freely available to all. In this course, presenters share an overview of NHANES data collection and tutorials and the importance of reviewing documentation files for possible changes in data collection over time. Examples show how NHANES is best used for providing a snapshot of nationally representative population-level estimates of nutrient and food group intakes and can be used for trend analyses. Presenters also discuss the importance of developing a conceptual model for any analyses where diet is being evaluated in relationship to health outcomes and reporting the results with appropriate statistical language. It is especially important to consider factors such the granularity of NHANES data, reverse causation and mediation, and the multifactorial nature and latency of many diseases.

Using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Data to Advance Nutrition Research

In a two-part webinar series from Fall of 2024, Using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Data to Advance Nutrition Research several presenters provide in-depth information about how NHANES data is collected and can be used for both policy making and epidemiological research. These webinars are available for free to ASN members and $10 each for non-members.

Part I of this series, Nuts and Bolts of NHANES – Using National Data to Advance Nutrition Research, covers detailed information on how NHANES and the WWEIA dietary data is collected, examples of policy uses for NHANES data including the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Thrifty Food Plan, and how to analyze NHANES data using SAS®.

Part II, Using NHANES for Complex Diet and Health Analyses, provides important information and resources for how to use biomarker data, the National Cancer Institute method for usual intake, the Healthy Eating Index, and external datasets which can be linked to NHANES. It also includes discussion of an R package for calculating multiple dietary indices using NHANES data.

We hope these resources help you understand the nuances of NHANES and WWEIA data and make it easier to access and use this important national resource to help further nutrition knowledge among researchers and policy makers.

Reference

¹Moshfegh AJ, Rhodes DG, Martin CL. (2022). National Food Intake Assessment: Technologies to Advance Traditional Methods. Annu. Rev. Nutr. Vol. 42:401-422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-nutr-062320-110636

ASN Staff