Course
Exposure Assessment in Nutrition Research (Hybrid course)
7th edition
The course will address methodological aspects of exposure assessment in nutrition and related fields of biomedical research.
Background
One of the main objectives of nutrition research is to provide scientific evidence for the role of diet in human health and disease. High quality dietary assessment methods and biomarkers are crucial to optimally design studies in this field. Nutrition research is often blamed for poor exposure assessment that might impair its usefulness. Therefore, studies that evaluate the validity of dietary assessment methods are important to allow proper inference from such studies. Consequently, researchers should master the concepts and principles underlying evaluation studies.
Target group
The course is meant for university graduates in biomedical sciences; nutrition, epidemiology etc. Knowledge on basic statistical concepts and methods (e.g. linear regression, paired t-test, correlation, ANOVA) and study designs is assumed. The course welcomes PhD candidates and postdocs as well as participants from industry and research centres.
Course aim
- The course will address methodological aspects of exposure assessment in nutrition and related fields of biomedical research. After participation the participant:
- is able to make a well-informed choice from different methods of exposure assessment;
- has insight in sources of measurement errors, consequences for exposure asssessment, impact on associations observed, and methods to account for these errors;
- is able to design and analyse evaluation studies, and to quantitatively present and interpret their results;
- is able to critically evaluate exposure assessment in nutrition and related fields of biomedical research.
Course design
The course consists of a series of lectures, supported by computer-assisted exercises. Also, discussions on exposure assessment in the participant’s own research will be part of the programme. The following topics will be addressed:
- State-of-the-art and recent developments in dietary assessment for different research questions and study designs, including issues relevant to collection of biomarkers in practice.
- Study designs for evaluation studies assessing validity and reproducibility, focusing on level of intake, nature of variation in diet, ability of ranking subjects, followed by the application of results in calibration of exposure and diattenuation of associations.
- Error models in exposure assessment, addressing systematic and random errors (group level bias, intake related bias, person-specific bias, day-to-day-variation, instrumental bias).
- Statistical methodology to estimate usual intake and uncertainty in dietary assessment.
Organisation
Course coordinators
- Dr Desiree Lucassen, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University
Faculty
- Dr Kevin Dodd, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, US
- Prof. Edith Feskens, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University
- Dr Michiel Balvers, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University
- Prof. Pieter van 't Veer, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University
- Dr Marga Ocke, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University / RIVM
Date & duration
The course will be held from 26 - 30 August 2024.
The course is offered both in-person and online. For participants who are not able to be present in Wageningen, we offer the possibility to join the course online via MS Teams.
Study load
The study load of this course is 1.2 ECTS credits.
Language
The course language will be English.
Contact information
For more information on the course content please contact Dr Desiree Lucassen
For more information please contact Cornelia van Bree-Evers
Location & accommodation
The course venue is one of the Wageningen University buildings on Wageningen Campus, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
This course is also offered online.
The town of Wageningen is 5 km from Ede-Wageningen railway station, with transport options being taxi or bus. Ede-Wageningen railway station is about one and a half hours from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. For train schedules visit: www.ns.nl.
Hotel accommodation is not included in the course fee. If you need accommodation in Wageningen, you can find several options below.
Hotels:
Wageningen International Congress Centre
Bed & Breakfast:
see Bed & breakfast Wageningen
Rooms and appartments:
Registration & course fee
The number of participants to the course is limited to 30. We encourage all our participants to come to the beautiful Wageningen Campus for this in person and interactive training. However for those who are not able to travel to Wageningen, this course can be offered online. We only have a max. of 6 online places available and cannot guarantee an online spot for every participant, so in case we exceed the 6 online participants, VLAG Graduate School will decide which participants can join online.
| WUR PhD candidates affiliated with VLAG/EPS/WASS/WIAS/WIMEK/PE&RC | € 275 |
| other PhD candidates/ WUR Postdocs | € 500 |
| University staff / Non-profit organisations | € 725 |
| Industry / For-profit | € 1600 |
The course fee includes materials but does not cover accommodation.
VLAG cancellation conditions