We provide a dietary assessment service to other researchers, who can purchase food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) from us, that we'll processes to provide nutrient intake data.
The food frequency questionnaire remains the property of the Cancer Council Victoria. It's made available to other parties on either a fee-for-service basis or as part of a negotiated collaboration.
Download a sample Food Frequency Questionnaire (PDF 312kb)
Our FFQs are designed to be self-administered, but can also be interviewer-administered. If self-administered it's the responsibility of the study coordinator to ensure they're completed correctly with no pages left blank, before returning them to our Cancer Epidemiology Centre for scanning and analysis.
The user guide below explains how to administer the questionnaire, details of how it was developed and sources of nutrient composition data and nutrient outputs.
Download Food Frequency Questionnaire User Information Guide (PDF 540kb)
Our questionnaires were developed for use with Australian adults. They were used in the Australian arm of the Breast Cancer CFR, the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, the Australian Prostate Cancer Family Study, the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health and over 20 other smaller epidemiological studies in Australia.
The original questionnaire was developed for the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, including foods identified from weighed food records among men and women born in Australia, Greece and Italy. The current questionnaire was developed from the original, and now comprises a food list of 74 items with 10 frequency response options ranging from 'Never' to '3 or more times per day'.
The questionnaire also contains 3 photographs of scaled portions for 4 foods (used to calculate a portion size calibrator), questions on the overall frequency fruits and vegetable consumption (used to calibrate the overestimation of these foods in the food list), and questions on consumption of foods that don't fit easily into the frequency format (such as breads).
The 74 food items are grouped into 4 categories:
A separate set of questions covers intake of alcoholic beverages. The food composition data used to calculate nutrients are from NUTTAB95, supplemented by other data where necessary. The output includes:
water, kilojoules, fat (total),protein, carbohydrate (total), sugars, starch and dextrins, dietary fibre, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus magnesium, iron, zinc, retinal equivalent, retinol, thiamine, beta-carotene equivalent, riboflavin, niacin niacin equivalent, vitamin c, alcohol, saturated fatty acids (total), monounsaturated fatty acids(total), polyunsaturated acids (total).
We've recently extended the calculations to include individual fatty acids, carotenoids, glycemic index, and glycemic load.
If you'd like to use our Food Frequency Questionnaire service download the FFQ order form, complete and return it by fax to 9635 5330.
| Quantity | Cost per FFQ & Analysis (GST incl) |
| Less than 1,000 | $7.70 |
| 1,000 to 4,000 | $6.60 |
| 4,001 to 10,000 | $5.50 |
| More than 10,000 | $4.40 |
Contact ffq@cancervic.org.au if you have any questions. Send completed questionnaires to:
Nutritional Assessment Office
Cancer Epidemiology Centre
The Cancer Council Victoria
1 Rathdowne Street
Carlton Vic 3053
