Consumer Food Environment Healthiness Score: Development, Validation, and Testing between Different Types of Food Retailers

Camila Aparecida Borges, Kamila Tiemann Gabe and Patricia Constante Jaime
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Camila Aparecida Borges: Center for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health, Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Public Health–University of Sao Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715-Cerqueira César, Sao Paulo 01246-904, Brazil
Kamila Tiemann Gabe: Center for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health, Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Public Health–University of Sao Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715-Cerqueira César, Sao Paulo 01246-904, Brazil
Patricia Constante Jaime: Center for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health, Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Public Health–University of Sao Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715-Cerqueira César, Sao Paulo 01246-904, Brazil

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scoring system, based on AUDITNOVA, to assess the healthiness of the consumer food environment, considering food availability, price, advertising, and placement strategies. Audited data of 650 food retailers were used to develop, validate, and test the consumer food environment healthiness score. To compose the score, the reference was the Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population. The total and subscores were standardized for a scale from 0 to 100. Construct validity was assessed using the Kruskal–Wallis Dunn tests. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated to determine the consistency of the scores. The median score was 33.7 (p25 = 26.9; p75 = 42.1). The public and private specialized indoor fresh food markets showed the highest medians; otherwise, bakeries and food retailers with the predominant sale of ultra-processed foods showed the lowest. The score was able to satisfactorily classify the extreme food retailer groups by the predominant sale of fresh or minimally processed foods and the predominant sale of ultra-processed foods. The results of Cronbach’s alpha showed excellent internal consistency (? = 0.91). The score helped to provide an overall assessment of consumer food environment healthiness and was able to classify food retailer groups as healthy and unhealthy according to the degree of processing of the available foods.

Keywords: nutrition consumer environment; food retailer; score; healthiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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