The French dietary survey on the general population (INCA3)

Abstract

The third French dietary survey, INCA3, was carried out by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES). In the contract CFT/EFSA/DCM/2011/02/02 concluded in 28/10/2011 with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), ANSES has committed itself to providing EFSA with French national food consumption data in the required format and suitable for inclusion in the EFSA Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database and in return, EFSA has committed itself to supporting the French national dietary survey. To comply with the EFSA Guidance, the main adaptations of the INCA3 survey methodology concerned the study population, the dietary information collection method and the interview protocol. In more details, the INCA3 study population included infants (0-1 year old) and toddlers (2-3 years old) and the 7-consecutive-day self-reported food record method was replaced by the three non-consecutive 24h-recalls (among 15-79 year-old subjects) or 24h-records (among 0-14 year-old subjects) methods administered by telephone. These adaptations were tested on the field during a pilot study in 2013. The full-scale INCA3 survey was carried out between February 2014 and September 2015 on two representative samples of respectively 2282 adults aged 18-79 years old and 2178 children aged 0-17 years old. For both samples, data were gathered using the GloboDiet software and coded into the FoodEx2 system afterward. A food propensity questionnaire was also used to collect long-term food intake. In addition, information on long-term food supplement use, physical activity and sedentariness levels, special diets and socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects were collected by supplementary questionnaires. Finally, the participants’ height and weight were measured.