title: Improving retrospective characterization of the food environment for a large region in the United States during a historic time period.
abstract: Access to healthy foods has received increasing attention due to growing prevalence of obesity and diet-related health conditions yet there are major obstacles in characterizing the local food environment. This study developed a method to retrospectively characterize supermarkets for a single historic year, 2005, in 19 counties in 6 states in the USA using a supermarket chain-name list and two business databases. Data preparation, merging, overlaps, added-value amongst various approaches and differences by census tract area-level socio-demographic characteristics are described. Agreement between two food store databases was modest: 63%. Only 55% of the final list of supermarkets were identified by a single business database and selection criteria that included industry classification codes and sales revenue ≥$2 million. The added-value of using a supermarket chain-name list and second business database was identification of an additional 14% and 30% of supermarkets, respectively. These methods are particularly useful to retrospectively characterize access to supermarkets during a historic period and when field observations are not feasible and business databases are used.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. aha27@drexel.edu
authors.forename: Amy H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Auchincloss
authors.forename: Kari A B
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Latetia V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Ana V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Diez Roux
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D004777:Environment; D005523:Food Supply / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D011156:Population Density; D011204:Poverty Areas; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States