Short-Form Audit Instrument for Assessing Corner Store Healthfulness

• Published in: American journal of health promotion Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 224 - 232
• Main Authors: DeWeese, Robin S., Todd, Michael, Karpyn, Allison, Yedidia, Michael J., Kennedy, Michelle, Bruening, Meg, Wharton, Christopher M., Ohri-Vachaspati, Punam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-01-2018; American Journal of Health Promotion
• Subjects: Audits; Body fat; Cities - statistics & numerical data; Commerce - standards; Exploratory factor analysis; Food Inspection - standards; Food Quality; Food Supply - standards; Health promotion; Health Promotion - methods; Healthy food; Humans; Item response theory; Milk; New Jersey; Nutrition; Owners; Relationship marketing; New Jersey; Cities; food environment; nutrition; built environment; corner stores; nutrition audits
• ISSN: 0890-1171; 2168-6602
• DOI: 10.1177/0890117116679059

Purpose:
To develop a valid and feasible short-form corner store audit tool (SCAT) that could be used in-store or over the phone to capture the healthfulness of corner stores.
Design:
Nonexperimental.
Setting:
Four New Jersey cities.
Subjects:
Random selection of 229 and 96 corner stores in rounds 1 and 2, respectively.
Measures:
An adapted version of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Corner Stores (NEMS-CS) was used to conduct in-store audits. The 7-item SCAT was developed and used for round 2 phone audits.
Analysis:
Exploratory factor analysis and item response theory were used to develop the SCAT.
Results:
The SCAT was highly correlated with the adapted NEMS-CS (r = .79). Short-form corner store audit tool scores placed stores in the same healthfulness categories as did the adapted NEMS-CS in 88% of the cases. Phone response matches indicated that store owners did not distinguish between 2% and low-fat milk and tended to round up the fruit and vegetable count to 5 if they had fewer varieties.
Conclusion:
The SCAT discriminates between higher versus lower healthfulness scores of corner stores and is feasible for use as a phone audit tool.