Oral

As research about the food environment grows, precise, reliable measures and methods are important to capture meaningful data. Unique geographic, population, and policy conditions create the need for more specific instruments. In addition, it is important that instruments can be implemented as efficiently as possible with limited training to preserve funds and make instrument accessible to a variety of organizations. Improving measurement, methodology and protocols will ensure public health practitioners have rich data to inform community action, programs and policies. The session will cover tools assessing retail landscapes, retail environments, and healthy food availability, quality, cost and promotion in a variety of settings including, American Indian and Latino communities, and urban retail and street vending environments.

Session Objectives: 1. Describe the importance of capturing food environment conditions. 2. Discuss unique retail food environments and any challenges to collecting reliable data in them. 3. List the benefits of obtaining and reporting reliable food environment data.