Short Healthy Eating Index (sHEI)

sHEI is a 22-item survey instrument developed for assessing dietary quality. Unlike the regular HEI calculations, which require collecting comprehensive food records, sHEI is a cost-effective way to quantify dietary quality.

How to Score Your Data in R?

Once your data (data) is cleaned and formatted according to our codebook, you can run this:

data_scored <- sHEI_Scores(data)

By default, the output data frame data_scored will only include the computed variables.

Citation

If you use our sHEI instrument in your research, please cite the following paper:

Colby, S., Zhou, W., Allison, C., Mathews, A. E., Olfert, M. D., Morrell, J. S., Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Greene, G., Brown, O., Kattelmann, K., & Shelnutt, K. (2020). Development and Validation of the Short Healthy Eating Index Survey with a College Population to Assess Dietary Quality and Intake. Nutrients, 12(9), 2611. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12092611

The DOI link provides the open-access paper with the questionaire and its scoring algorithm documented in its appendix.

Input and Output

sHEI Input Data Formatting Requirements

To score sHEI, we require the following variables and encoding:

• Gender : Are you male or female? M = Male; F = Female. Other values are not possible.
• Q1 (Fruit) : On average, how many servings of fruit (not including juice) do eat per day? Choices are:
  • 1 = Less than 1
  • 2 = 1
  • 3 = 2
  • 4 = 3
  • 5 = 4
  • 6 = 5
  • 7 = 6 or more
  • 8 = Choose not to answer
• Q2 (Fruitjuice) : On average, how many servings of 100% fruit juice do you drink per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q3 (Vege) : On average, how many servings of vegetables do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q4 (Greenvege) : On average, how many servings of green vegetables do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q5 (Starchy) : On average, how many servings of starchy vegetables do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q6 (Grains) : On average, how many servings of grains do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q7 (Grains2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q6]. On average, how often do you eat grains? Choices are:
  • 1 = A couple times per week
  • 2 = A couple times per month
  • 3 = A couple times per year
  • 4 = Almost never
  • 5 = Never
  • 6 = Choose not to answer
• Q8 (Wholegrains) : On average, how many servings of whole grains do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q9 (Wholegrains2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q8]. On average, how often do you eat whole grains? Choices are the same as Q7.
• Q10 (Milk) : On average, how many servings of milk do you eat or drink per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q11 (Milk2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q10]. On average, how often do you drink or eat milk products? Choices are the same as Q7.
• Q12 (Lowfatmilk) : On average, how many servings of low-fat milk products do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q13 (Lowfatmilk2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q12]. On average, how often do you drink or eat low-fat milk products? Choices are the same as Q7.
• Q14 (Beans) : On average, how many servings of beans (legumes) do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q15 (Nutseeds) : On average, how many servings of nuts or seeds do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q16 (Seafood): On average, how many servings of seafood do you eat per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q17 (Seafood2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q16]. On average, how often do you eat seafood? Choices are the same as Q7.
• Q18 (Ssb) : On average, how many sugar-sweetened beverages do you drink per day? Choices are the same as Q1.
• Q19 (Ssb2) : [shown only if “Less Than 1” is selected for Q18]. On average, how often do you drink sugar-sweetened beverages? Choices are the same as Q7.
• Q20 (Addedsugars) : On average, how much added sugars do you consume per day? Choices are:
  • 1 = None/almost none
  • 2 = Some
  • 3 = A lot
  • 4 = Choose not to answer
• Q21 (Satfat) : How many servings of saturated fat do you consume on average per day? Choices are the same as Q20.
• Q22 (Water) : On average, how much water do you drink per day? Choices are the same as Q20.

sHEI Output Variables

The output of our sHEI code is a data frame that includes estimated HEI component and total scores and certain food group intakes.

Estimates of component and total HEI scores are:

• sHEI_total_fruits : sHEI estimated Total Fruits Component (compared to total_fruits in HEI), 0–5
• sHEI_whole_fruits : sHEI estimated Whole Fruits Component (whole_fruits), 0–5
• sHEI_tot_veg : sHEI estimated Total Vegetables Component (tot_veg), 0–5
• sHEI_greens_beans : sHEI estimated Greens and Beans Component (greens_beans), 0–5
• sHEI_whole_grains : sHEI estimated Whole Grains Component (whole_grains), 0–10
• sHEI_dairy : sHEI estimated Dairy Component (Dairy), 0–10
• sHEI_tot_proteins : sHEI estimated Total Protein Foods Component (tot_proteins), 0–5
• sHEI_seafood_plant : sHEI estimated Seafood and Plant Protein Component (Seafood_Plant), 0–5
• sHEI_fatty_acid : sHEI estimated Fatty Acid Ratio Component (Fatty_Acid), 0–10
• sHEI_refined_grains : sHEI estimated Refined Grains Component (Refined_Grains), 0–10
• sHEI_sodium : sHEI estimated Sodium Component (Sodium), 0–10
• sHEI_added_sugars : sHEI estimated Added Sugars Component (Added_Sugars), 0–10
• sHEI_sat_fat : sHEI estimated Saturated Fats Component (sat_fat), 0–10
• sHEI_tot_score : sHEI estimated Total DQ Score (0–100)

Estimates of food group intakes are:

• sHEI_DSQfvl : sHEI estimated Total Fruit and Vegetable Servings in Cup Equivalents Including Legumes and French Fries (DSQfvl)
• sHEI_DSQfvlnf : sHEI estimated Total Fruit and Vegetable Servings in Cup Equivalents Including Legumes and Excluding French Fries (Dsqfvlnf)
• sHEI_DSQfrt : sHEI estimated Total Fruit Servings in Cup Equivalents (Dsqfrt)
• sHEI_DSQvlall : sHEI estimated Total Vegetable Servings in Cup Equivalents Including Legumes and French Fries (Dsqvlall)
• sHEI_DSQvlnf : sHEI estimated Total Vegetable Servings in Cup Equivalents Including Legumes and Excluding French Fries (Dsqvlnf)
• sHEI_DSQdairy : sHEI estimated Dairy Servings in Cup Equivalents (Dsqdairy)
• sHEI_DSQsug : sHEI estimated Added Sugars in Teaspoon Equivalents (Dsqsug)
• sHEI_DSQssb : sHEI estimated Added Sugars from Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Teaspoon Equivalents (DSQssb)
• sHEI_DSQwhgr : sHEI estimated Whole Grains in Ounce Equivalents (DSQwhgr)
• sHEI_DSQfib : sHEI estimated Fiber in Grams (DSQfib)
• sHEI_DSQcalc : sHEI estimated Calcium in Milligrams (DSQcalc)
• sHEI_greens : sHEI estimated Green Vegetables in Cup Equivalents