Asian Assist: A Bilingual Dietary Assessment Program for Chinese Americans

Asian Assist is a fully operational dietary assessment program developed and tested under a Small Business Technology Transfer Research grant from NIH. The program is both text and picture prompted and is bilingual. Chinese fonts (in traditional or simplified mode) can be viewed simultaneously with English text through the use of a Chinese browser such as Asia SurfTM. English is the default language, and the program will run in English with or without launching the Chinese browser. Designed to be self-administered, the program requires only minimal instruction on computer navigation. Cognitive anchors such as clock time and meal location, food grouping, food containers and condiments that are culturally specific guide the data entry process. The program permits on demand review and edit of food description and amount when necessary. Data entry can be done using a recall or recording mode, either by the client (respondent) or the interviewer (survey staff). Food consumption data collected by the program are stored and can be exported for further statistical analysis.