Below is information about reduced item food audits for stores and restaurants recently published. The findings and conclusions presented are solely those of the authors and do not represent
the official position or policies of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Reduced-Item Food Audits Based on the Nutrition Environment Measures Surveys.
Partington SN1,
Menzies TJ2,
Colburn TA3,
Saelens BE4,
Glanz K5.
Am J Prev Med. 2015 Oct;49(4):e23-33. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2015.04.036. Epub 2015 Jul 21.
Abstract:
Introduction: The community food environment may contribute to obesity by influencing food choice. Store and restaurant audits are increasingly common methods for
assessing food environments, but are time consuming and costly. A valid, reliable brief measurement tool is needed. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate reduced-item food environment audit tools for stores and restaurants.
Methods: Nutrition Environment Measures Surveys for stores (NEMS-S) and restaurants (NEMS-R) were completed in 820 stores and 1,795 restaurants in West Virginia,
San Diego, and Seattle. Data mining techniques (correlation-based feature selection and linear regression) were used to identify survey items highly correlated to total survey scores and produce reduced-item audit tools that were subsequently validated against
full NEMS surveys. Regression coefficients were used as weights that were applied to reduced-item tool items to generate comparable scores to full NEMS surveys. Data were collected and analyzed in 2008–2013.
Results: The reduced-item tools included eight items for grocery, ten for convenience, seven for variety, and five for other stores; and 16 items for sit-down, 14
for fast casual, 19 for fast food, and 13 for specialty restaurants—10% of the full NEMS-S and 25% of the full NEMS-R. There were no significant differences in median scores for varying types of retail food outlets when compared to the full survey scores.
Median in-store audit time was reduced 25%–50%.
Conclusions: Reduced-item audit tools can reduce the burden and complexity of large-scale or repeated assessments of the retail food environment without compromising
measurement quality.
(Am J Prev Med 2015;49(4):e23–e33)
To access this article, see
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the publications page of the NEMS website:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/nems/publications.shtml
The supplementary data in the article’s appendix includes the reduced item audit tools and scoring instructions.