Traqq®: an ecological momentary dietary assessment app
About Traqq
Traqq® is a flexible ecological momentary dietary assessment app specifically developed for use in research settings and can be used to collect diet-related data in a fast, flexible and reliable manner.
Accurate assessment of dietary intake is fundamental to nutrition research. Yet, traditional methods are often cumbersome and prone to errors, which could negatively impact research outcomes.
Traqq® is easy-to-use and can be completely tailored to specific research purposes.
Distinctive qualities
- Flexibility in dietary assessment method:
- Food record: participants are asked to report consumed foods throughout the day, or part of the day.
- Recall: participants are asked to report consumed foods over a predefined time period (e.g., 2-hour recalls, 4-hour recalls).
- The food list is standardly linked to the national food consumption database and can be further adjusted to ensure coverage of foods of interest (e.g., sports nutrition for athletes, provided foods during a trial).
- The reporting of consumed amounts can be adjusted (e.g., only gram for a weighed food record) or completely turned off (e.g., in case consumed amounts are not of interest).
- Eating occasions can be adjusted or turned off (e.g., in case eating occasion is not of interest)
- Time of consumption can also be requested for each consumed food.
- Tailored sampling schemes can be created to facilitate automatic data collection during a prespecified time period.
- Linkage to Qualtrics is possible to enable additional questions related to reported food items, eating occasions, or time windows (e.g., food choice motivations, contextual factors).
- Privacy- and GDPR-proof: Traqq® does not store any personal data!
Validation
Traqq® facilitates EMA-based dietary assessment via short recall intervals. The added value of this innovative dietary assessment method has been proven effective in an extensive validation study. The Traqq® repeated 2-hour recall method has been validated against objective urinary and plasma biomarkers as well as established 24-hour recalls. Our extensive validation study showed that Traqq®'s repeated 2-hour recalls provide a more accurate dietary assessment as compared to traditional 24-hour recalls.
Usability
Traqq® has been developed by nutrition scientists from Wageningen University and has been evaluated in different target populations (e.g., adolescents, adults, older adults). Usability scores based on the System Usability Scale (SUS) rated Traqq® as an easy-to-use tool.
Country-specific versions
Originally Traqq® has been developed for use in the Netherlands. Yet, due to its flexible nature, the app can be easily tailored to other countries. Currently, in addition to the original version and an English-Dutch version, we also have a tailored version for Spain, Switzerland, Greece and Poland. These adapted versions are all developed together with local nutrition experts and based on local food composition databases.