ACBN Technology & Digital Applications 5 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which type of research design provides the STRONGEST evidence when evaluating a digital nutrition intervention's effectiveness?
- Expert opinion published in a nutrition blog
- Randomized controlled trial with an active control group (Correct answer)
- Cross-sectional survey of app users
- Case series of successful client outcomes
Correct answer: Randomized controlled trial with an active control group
A randomized controlled trial with an active comparator minimizes confounding and selection bias, providing the highest level of evidence for causal claims about intervention effectiveness.
Question 2: A client's nutrition app uses a large language model (LLM) chatbot to answer dietary questions. Which risk MOST warrants practitioner oversight of LLM-generated nutrition advice?
- The chatbot responds too slowly
- Hallucinationāgenerating plausible but factually incorrect nutrition information (Correct answer)
- Inability to display food images
- Limited language support
Correct answer: Hallucinationāgenerating plausible but factually incorrect nutrition information
LLMs can generate confident, coherent, but factually wrong statements (hallucinations), which in a clinical context could lead to harmful dietary decisions without practitioner review.
Question 3: According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, a key ethical obligation when using social media for nutrition education is:
- Maintaining a minimum of 1,000 followers before posting
- Clearly distinguishing professional opinion from evidence-based guidance (Correct answer)
- Avoiding any discussion of supplements online
- Posting exclusively on platforms approved by state boards
Correct answer: Clearly distinguishing professional opinion from evidence-based guidance
The Academy's code of ethics requires practitioners to accurately represent the evidence base, making transparency about the distinction between opinion and research mandatory.
Question 4: A wearable device estimates a client's sleep duration at 7.5 hours, but the client reports feeling unrefreshed. Which digital metric should the nutritionist ALSO examine to assess sleep quality?
- Resting heart rate during the day
- Heart rate variability (HRV) and sleep stage distribution (Correct answer)
- Step count on waking
- Blood oxygen average across the week
Correct answer: Heart rate variability (HRV) and sleep stage distribution
Sleep stage distribution and HRV during sleep reveal restorative sleep architecture; adequate total duration with poor HRV or minimal deep/REM sleep can explain non-restorative sleep.
Question 5: Which data governance principle requires that a nutrition app collect only the specific personal data necessary for its stated function?
- Data portability
- Data minimization (Correct answer)
- Right to erasure
- Purpose limitation
Correct answer: Data minimization
Data minimization, a core GDPR and privacy best-practice principle, mandates that only data strictly necessary for the service's purpose is collected, reducing privacy risk.
Question 6: A nutritionist uses predictive analytics software to flag clients at risk of dropping out of a weight management program. The MOST appropriate use of this output is:
- Automatically discharge flagged clients to reduce caseload
- Prioritize proactive outreach and support for flagged clients (Correct answer)
- Share risk scores with the client's employer wellness program
- Replace subjective clinical judgment entirely with the algorithm's ranking
Correct answer: Prioritize proactive outreach and support for flagged clients
Predictive flags should trigger enhanced engagement strategies; they are decision-support tools that informābut do not replaceāindividualized clinical judgment.
Question 7: When a nutrition practice migrates client records to a new EHR, which step is MOST critical to protect data integrity?
- Selecting a vendor with the most features
- Validating migrated data with reconciliation checks against source records (Correct answer)
- Notifying clients by mass email before migration
- Deleting source records immediately after transfer
Correct answer: Validating migrated data with reconciliation checks against source records
Reconciliation checks compare migrated records against originals to catch data loss, corruption, or mapping errors before the old system is decommissioned.
ACBN Technology & Digital Applications 5
Which type of research design provides the STRONGEST evidence when evaluating a digital nutrition intervention's effectiveness?