Background
The goal of this Web site is to enable access to existing measures of the food environment and stimulate the development of the next generation of tools. Robust measures of the food environment will strengthen research on the effects of the community-level food environment on individual dietary behavior, inform policymaking, and help reduce the prevalence of obesity through targeted interventions.
A working group with expertise in measuring the food environment was formed by the National Cancer Institute in 2006. This group of researchers identified the need to create a consolidated list of the measures of the food environment. It noted that there has been no systematic compilation of measures of the food environment, and that a compilation of the current work would benefit researchers and community groups interested in reviewing or using existing measures.
A workshop was held in November 2007 to assess the state of the science of these environmental measures, examine knowledge gained from research using measurement instruments and methodologies, and define gaps and priorities for future work. Materials from the workshop as well as a journal supplement from the proceedings are available:
