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Research and Professional Brief
Public Directory Data Sources Do Not Accurately Characterize the Food Environment in Two Predominantly Rural States

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2011.01.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Communities are being encouraged to develop locally based interventions to address environmental risk factors for obesity. Online public directories represent an affordable and easily accessible mechanism for mapping community food environments, but may have limited utility in rural areas. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of public directories vs rigorous onsite field verification to characterize the community food environment in 32 geographically dispersed towns from two rural states covering 1,237.6 square miles. Eight types of food outlets were assessed in 2007, including food markets and eating establishments, first using two publically available online directories followed by onsite field verification by trained coders. χ2 and univariate binomial regression were used to determine whether the proportion of outlets accurately listed varied by food outlet type or town population. Among 1,340 identified outlets, only 36.9% were accurately listed through public directories; 29.6% were not listed but were located during field observation. Accuracy varied by outlet type, being most accurate for big box stores and least accurate for farm/produce stands. Overall, public directories accurately identified fewer than half of the food outlets. Accuracy was significantly lower for rural and small towns compared to mid-size and urban towns (P<0.001). In this geographic sample, public directories seriously misrepresented the actual distribution of food outlets, particularly for rural and small towns. To inform local obesity-prevention efforts, communities should strongly consider using field verification to characterize the food environment in low-population areas.

Section snippets

Methods

Data for the current study were collected as part of a larger study of individual, family, and environmental influences on adolescent obesity in primarily rural and small town geographic areas of Northern New England. The study, titled “Environmental and Family Influences on Adolescent Overweight,” was approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects at Dartmouth College.

Results and Discussion

The sampling area covered 1,237.6 square miles, encompassing 7% of the total combined land area in New Hampshire and Vermont. Towns were well-distributed by population size: rural, n=11; small town, n=7; mid-sized town, n=8; and urban, n=6. Nine hundred and forty-three food outlets were identified through public directory listings and 960 through field observations. After accounting for overlap, this provided a sample of 1,340 unique food outlets. Twenty-seven percent were food markets and 73%

Conclusions

This study represents one of the largest samples of food outlets to date validated through field verification methods, identifying nearly 1,000 outlets in the primarily low-population sampling area. The sample included four distinct population patterns within a relatively small geographic area, and assessed eight types of food outlets, providing a comprehensive description of the regional food environment. The efficacy of using public directories to identify community food outlets in

M. R. Longacre is an instructor, Community Health Research Program, Hood Center for Children and Families, Department of Pediatrics, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH.

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    M. R. Longacre is an instructor, Community Health Research Program, Hood Center for Children and Families, Department of Pediatrics, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH.

    B. A. Primack is an assistant professor, Divisions of General Internal Medicine and Adolescent Medicine, Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, Center for Research on Health Care, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA.

    P. M. Owens is an urban planner, Smart Mobility, Inc, Norwich, VT.

    L. Gibson is principal, Smart Mobility, Inc, Norwich, VT.

    S. Beauregard is an engineer, Smart Mobility, Inc, Norwich, VT.

    T. A. Mackenzie is an associate professor, Community Health Research Program, Hood Center for Children and Families, Departments of Community and Family Medicine and Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH.

    M. A. Dalton is a professor, Community Health Research Program, Hood Center for Children and Families, Departments of Pediatrics and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH.

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