KINE4170 Public Health Nutrition and Food Policy Take-Home Exam

KINE4170 Public Health Nutrition and Food Policy Take-Home Exam (20%)

This take-home exam is designed to allow you to experience conducting epidemiological research in nutrition and food policy development. Your task is to analyze the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) dataset and prepare a short manuscript (technical report) on one of the objectives. Guide for Manuscript There are numerous approaches that can be taken in drawing up a manuscript or technical report. For KINE4170, the manuscript should be brief [about 15-18 pages double-spaced, references can be on a separate page(s), in-text citations are required for this assignment, indicate page numbers], clearly indicating the components of the manuscript (e.g., abstract, introduction, objective, methods, results, discussion and conclusion and references, and other materials). The following outline elaborates on this scheme. Grading of proposal will consider each of the following. Manuscript Format 1. Title, Author List and Affiliations, Abstract and Keywords: Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. Please indicate course code and instructor. Author List and Affiliation: Authors’ full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 150-200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article’s main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions. Keywords: Three to five pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline. 2. Introduction The research area should be introduced, and its importance indicated. The highlights (literature review) of what is presently known about the subject should be covered concisely and questions remaining or gaps in the knowledge should be noted. a. Objective The specific question or problem that will be the focus of the study should be clearly laid out. State your hypothesis. Version March 2022 2 3. Methods A brief but detailed experimental plan of the work should be presented. This part should summarize the actual procedures or analytical methodology to be used in obtaining results and include steps taken to ensure reliability, precision, and accuracy. It should include the source (i.e., human, animal, plant) of the samples to be analyzed and the number of the samples to be analyzed. a. Statistical Analysis The methods to be used in processing the data should be presented. Give the name and version of the R and Excel software that you will be using to conduct the data analyses. 3. Results (including any Tables or Figures) Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results. 4. Discussion (including a section on strengths and limitations) Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and strengths and limitations of the work highlighted. 5. Conclusion Provide a few sentences on the key findings and final implications of the results. Future research directions may also be mentioned. 6 . References References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. I recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package. 7 . Funding All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section. 8. Conflict of Interest Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” 9. Acknowledgements In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments). 10. Data Availability Statement In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. You are required to upload a copy of your code. Version March 2022 3 Grading: • Literature Review, Identification of problem/determination of hypothesis, design for testing hypothesis, including method of data collection, data analyses. 30% • Presentation of results, discussion and conclusion 60% • Detailed Code 10% Research Objectives: You can pick any one of the three objectives that you are most interested in. The dataset, including all the variables that you require, and a data dictionary with the explanation of the variables will be provided to you. Sample code will also be available. You will need to use R/R-studio to analyze the dataset and you can use Excel to create tables and figures, as needed. Your task is to analyze and present the findings in a short manuscript format. Pick only one of the following three: Objective#1: Chronic disease and nutrient intake Population focus: Canadian adults (>19 years of age) with hypertension 1) How many Canadian adults have self-reported hypertension? 2) What is the intake of sodium of people with hypertension by DRI age/sex groups? Compare the intake of sodium of those with hypertension to those without hypertension? 3) What are the top 5 foods (or food groups) consumed (by weight) by people with hypertension? a. Discuss whether these foods are high in sodium in the discussion? Objective#2: Intake of sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages Population focus: Children and adolescents (<18 years of age) 1) What is the intake of total sugar in children and adolescents by DRI age/sex groups? 2) Compare the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (by weight) between children (2-13 years old) and adolescents (14-18 years old)? 3) What are the top 5 foods (or food groups) consumed by children and adolescents by DRI age/sex groups? a. Discuss whether these foods are high in total sugar and added sugar? Objective#3: Canadians’ dietary intake and food group consumption Population focus: Canadian adults (>19 years of age) 1) What is the total caloric intake and what % of total calories come from carbohydrates, fat and protein for Canadian adults (>19 years old) by DRI age/sex groups? 2) What is the intake of nutrients of public health concern (saturated fat, sodium, total sugar, calcium, iron) by DRI age/sex groups? Compare the intake of calcium and iron between males and females? a. Discuss how these intakes compare to DRI recommendations in the discussion. (NOTE: YOU ARE NOT ASSESSING PREVALENCE OF INADEQUACY) 3) What are the top 5 food groups consumed by Canadian adults? Discuss whether these foods are high in saturated fat, sodium and total sugar in your discussion.