(P17-029-25) NIH’s Continued Investment in Dietary Assessment

Objectives: The NIH’s National Cancer Institute has a long history of investment in dietary assessment methods. The Automated Self-Administered 24-hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool was released in 2009. ASA24 is freely available, validated, web-based, and enables the collection of auto-coded, self-administered 24-hour recalls (24HR) and single or multi-day food records. Here we describe the financial investment in ASA24 and quantify the return on investment for the research community.

Methods: Using ASA24 system data from August 2009 through December 2024, we extracted the reported purpose (research, teaching, clinical, other) of all registered studies. A literature review identified ASA24 data collection in peer reviewed publications through December 2024. Total dollar investment for the development, enhancement, and maintenance of ASA24 from 2005 through December 2024, was used. We compared the cost per recall to the alternative, interviewer-administered 24HR ($100), and calculated overall research savings using the accepted indirect rate of 1.54.

Results: The total NIH investment in ASA24 through December 2024 is $11.5 M. Over 1,300 peer-reviewed manuscripts have used ASA24 to collect dietary data, and over 1 M 24HR or records have been collected. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of all ASA24 users report using it for research, followed by teaching (11%), clinical (17%), and other (8%). Compared to interviewer-administered 24HR, ASA24 has saved researchers and institutions $98.6 M.

Conclusions: ASA24 has enabled researchers to collect granular data that facilitates investigation of nutrient intake from foods, beverages, and dietary supplements, and additional features including timing of eating, food groups, food patterns, and eating context (alone vs. with family or friends, while using electronic devices, and source of foods). In recent years, ASA24 linked with the Nova classification and added a sleep module. Future linkages include greenhouse gas emissions. ASA24 also has a Respondent Nutrition Report that provides feedback to study participants comparing their intake to country-specific dietary guidance providing tangible benefits from their participation in research. The ASA24 tool, freely available to researchers, represents a more than 8-fold return on investment in nutrition research.

Funding Sources: None