Developing a Web-based dietary sodium screening tool for personalized assessment and feedback

Dietary sodium reduction is commonly used in the treatment of hypertension, heart and liver failure, and chronic kidney disease. Sodium reduction is also an important public health problem since most of the Canadian population consumes sodium in excess of their daily requirements. Lack of awareness about the amount of sodium consumed and the sources of sodium in diet is common, and undoubtedly a major contributor to excess sodium consumption. There are few known tools available to screen and provide personalized information about sodium in the diet. Therefore, we developed a Web-based sodium intake screening tool called the Salt Calculator ( www.projectbiglife.ca ), which is publicly available for individuals to assess the amount and sources of sodium in their diet. The Calculator contains 23 questions focusing on restaurant foods, packaged foods, and added salt. Questions were developed using sodium consumption data from the Canadian Community Health Survey cycle 2.2 and up-to-date information on sodium levels in packaged and restaurant food databases from the University of Toronto. The Calculator translates existing knowledge about dietary sodium into a tool that can be accessed by the public as well as integrated into clinical practice to address the high levels of sodium presently in the Canadian diet.