Gladys Block

Gladys Block is a nutrition researcher most famous for her work in designing the Block food frequency questionnaire and her meta-analysis of the nutritional effects of Vitamin C. She worked at the National Cancer Institute and is currently a Professor Emerita of the University of California, Berkeley, as well as founder and scientific director of NutritionQuest.

Block received a Bachelor of Arts in English, Philosophy, and French from Swarthmore College in 1960, and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health in 1982.

From May 1982 to June 1991, Block worked at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health as a nutritional epidemiologist. While there, she worked on the Block FFQ and conducted research on the role of Vitamin C and cancer risk.

From July 1991 onward, Block worked at the University of California, Berkeley as a professor (and subsequently professor emerita) of Community Health and Human Development in the School of Public Health.

In 1994, Block founded NutritionQuest, a company that provides diet and physical activity screeners including the Block FFQ, and provides the Alive! tool to help people improve their physical activity and food habits. Block is currently Senior Scientist at NutritionQuest.

During her time at the National Cancer Institute (1982 to 1991), Block developed a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) that would later come to be known as the Block FFQ. The approach to questionnaire design was first described in a paper co-authored with Hartman, Dresser, Carroll, Gannon, and Gardner in 1986. Research by Block, Potosky, and Clifford on validation of the questionnaire was published in 1990.

After leaving the National Cancer Institute in 1991, Block continued to work on the FFQ, offering it through the company, NutritionQuest, that she founded in 1994. Subsequent released versions include the Block 95 and Block 98 FFQs. A web version was also released and validated.

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