The Fruit & Vegetable Screener in the 2001 California Health Interview Survey

The Fruit and Vegetable Screener used in the 2001 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) was derived from the Multifactor Screener in the 2000 NHIS Cancer Control Supplement (CCS). The CHIS screener asks respondents for information about how frequently they consume foods in eight categories. No portion size questions are asked.

This screener does not attempt to assess total diet. The questions asked allow researchers to gather information about Pyramid servings of fruits and vegetables, using the 1992 definitions of servings from the Food Guide Pyramid.

You can view or print the CHIS 2001 Fruit and Vegetable Screener, provided as a PDF file.

In CHIS 2001, we applied rules for excluding extreme data responses, described in Definition of Acceptable Dietary Data. The process of scoring the individual response data is described in Scoring Procedures. A description and guidelines for the appropriate uses of the screener-estimated dietary intakes is found in Uses of Screener Estimates. Validation data for the CHIS 2001 screener are presented in Validity Results. Finally, the various fruit and vegetable computed variables are found in Computed Variables.

NOTE: The dietary variables on the CHIS dataset are in their natural units. For analyses, however, they must be transformed, first, to approximate normal distributions. For all variable versions of servings of fruits and vegetables, use the square root transformation. After analyses, the result variables can be back-transformed for easier interpretation.

A new Dietary Screener is in the 2005 CHIS.