Multiple-Pass 24-Hour Dietary Recall
Also known as: AMPM, Automated Multiple-Pass Method, 5-Pass 24-Hour Recall, 24-Hour Dietary Recall (Multiple-Pass)
The Multiple-Pass 24-Hour Dietary Recall is a structured interview method for measuring everything an individual ate and drank in the previous day, designed to maximize completeness and accuracy through several successive passes over the same day. Its definitive form is the USDA Automated Multiple-Pass Method (AMPM), a computerized five-step protocol used in What We Eat in America, the dietary component of NHANES. Validated against doubly labeled water by Moshfegh and colleagues in 2008, the AMPM was shown to reduce the bias in self-reported energy intake that plagues single-pass recalls, and the earlier 5-step protocol was validated against weighed observation by Conway and colleagues. By guiding respondents through a quick list, forgotten-food probes, time and occasion, detailed descriptions and amounts, and a final review, the method turns a notoriously error-prone task into a standardized, quantifiable dietary measurement.
Key highlights
- Standardized multi-pass structure systematically recovers forgotten foods and reduces under-reporting bias.
- Validated against doubly labeled water (AMPM) and weighed observation (5-step), giving documented accuracy for group intakes.
- Yields quantitative energy and nutrient intakes, not just qualitative food-group presence.
- Lower respondent burden and no reactivity-induced change in eating compared with weighed food records, since the day has already passed.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the multiple-pass 24-hour recall when you need quantitative estimates of energy and nutrient intake and cannot impose the burden of weighed records on respondents. It is the method of choice for national dietary surveillance such as NHANES, for nutritional epidemiology, and for clinical and intervention studies that require absolute intakes rather than mere diet-group counts. Multiple non-consecutive recalls per person allow estimation of usual intake distributions. It is less appropriate when a quick qualitative diet-quality proxy suffices (use a dietary diversity score), when the truest possible criterion measure is required regardless of cost and reactivity (use a weighed food record), or when respondents cannot complete a detailed interactive interview. Because it depends on memory, it remains subject to recall and portion-estimation error even when the multiple-pass structure minimizes them.
Strengths & limitations
- Standardized multi-pass structure systematically recovers forgotten foods and reduces under-reporting bias.
- Validated against doubly labeled water (AMPM) and weighed observation (5-step), giving documented accuracy for group intakes.
- Yields quantitative energy and nutrient intakes, not just qualitative food-group presence.
- Lower respondent burden and no reactivity-induced change in eating compared with weighed food records, since the day has already passed.
- Relies on memory, so it remains subject to recall error and portion-size misestimation despite the multi-pass design.
- A single day does not represent usual intake; multiple recalls are needed to estimate the usual-intake distribution.
- Interviewer-administered AMPM requires trained interviewers and computer infrastructure, raising cost and complexity.
- Accuracy depends on the completeness and currency of the underlying food-composition database.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
What are the five passes of the USDA AMPM?
The five steps are: (1) the Quick List, an uninterrupted free recall of all foods and beverages; (2) the Forgotten Foods probe, a standardized prompt for commonly omitted categories such as beverages, snacks, and sweets; (3) Time and Occasion, assigning each food a time and eating occasion; (4) the Detail cycle, collecting detailed descriptions and quantified amounts with portion aids; and (5) the Final Review, reading back the day to capture anything missed. Each pass is designed to recover information the previous pass left behind, cumulatively improving completeness and accuracy.
How is the multiple-pass recall different from a weighed food record?
A weighed food record has the respondent weigh and record every item in real time as they eat, producing a prospective, observation-based measure but imposing high burden and risking reactivity, where people change what they eat because they are recording it. The multiple-pass recall is retrospective: it reconstructs the previous day through a structured interview, so it cannot alter the behavior being measured and is far less burdensome, at the cost of depending on memory and portion estimation. The two are complementary, and weighed records are often used to validate recalls.
How accurate is the AMPM?
Validation against doubly labeled water by Moshfegh and colleagues in 2008 showed that the AMPM substantially reduced the under-reporting bias typical of self-reported energy intake, performing well for normal-weight individuals though, like all self-report methods, still under-reporting somewhat among some groups. Conway and colleagues had earlier shown the 5-step method gave accurate group intake estimates against weighed observation in obese and nonobese women. The method is accurate for estimating mean intakes of groups; for individuals and for usual intake, multiple recalls and statistical adjustment are needed.
Sources
- 1.Moshfegh, A. J., Rhodes, D. G., Baer, D. J., Murayi, T., Clemens, J. C., Rumpler, W. V., Paul, D. R., Sebastian, R. S., Kuczynski, K. J., Ingwersen, L. A., Staples, R. C., & Cleveland, L. E. (2008). The US Department of Agriculture Automated Multiple-Pass Method reduces bias in the collection of energy intakes. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 88(2), 324-332.
- 2.Conway, J. M., Ingwersen, L. A., Vinyard, B. T., & Moshfegh, A. J. (2003). Effectiveness of the US Department of Agriculture 5-step multiple-pass method in assessing food intake in obese and nonobese women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77(5), 1171-1178.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 23). Multiple-Pass 24-Hour Dietary Recall. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/food-agriculture-studies/multiple-pass-24h-dietary-recall