title: Street Food Environment in Maputo (STOOD Map): a Cross-Sectional Study in Mozambique.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Street food represents a cultural, social, and economic phenomenon that is typical of urbanized areas, directly linked with a more sedentary lifestyle and providing a very accessible and inexpensive source of nutrition. Food advertising may contribute to shaping consumers' preferences and has the potential to drive the supply of specific foods.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study is to characterize the street food offerings available to the urban population of Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, and the billboard food advertising in the same setting.
  
  
  METHODS
  People selling ready-to-eat foods, beverages, or snacks from venues such as carts, trucks, stands, and a variety of improvised informal setups (eg, shopping carts, trunks of cars, sides of vans, blankets on the sidewalk, etc) will be identified in the district of KaMpfumu. We will gather information about the actual food being sold through direct observation and interviews to vendors, and from the billboard advertising in the same areas. A second phase of the research entails collecting food samples to be analyzed in a specialized laboratory. The street food environment will be characterized, overall and according to socioeconomic and physical characteristics of the neighborhood, using descriptive statistics and spatial analysis. The study protocol was approved by the National Committee for Bioethics for Health in Mozambique.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data collection, including the identification of street food vending sites and billboard advertising, started on October 20, 2014, and lasted for 1 month. The collection of food samples took place in December 2014, and the bromatological analyses are expected to be concluded in August 2015.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The district of KaMpfumu is the wealthiest and most urbanized in Maputo, and it is the area with the highest concentration and variety of street food vendors. The expected results may yield important information to assess the nutritional environment and the characteristics of the foods to which a great majority of the urban population living or working in Maputo are exposed. Furthermore, this study protocol provides a framework for a stepwise standardized characterization of the street food environment, comprising 3 steps with increasing complexity and demand for human and technical resources: Step 1 consists of the evaluation of food advertising in the streets; Step 2 includes the identification of street food vendors and the characterization of the products available; and Step 3 requires the collection of food samples for bromatological analyses. This structured approach to the assessment of the street food environment may enable within-country and international comparisons as well as monitoring of temporal trends.
authors.affiliation: Italian Cooperation Agency, Maputo, Mozambique.
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5944-7208
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gelormini
authors.forename: Albertino
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5547-0224
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Damasceno
authors.forename: Simão António
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8687-2330
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.forename: Sérgio
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3409-9286
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maló
authors.forename: Célia
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9989-7660
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chongole
authors.forename: Paulino
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9764-1802
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Muholove
authors.forename: Susana
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1686-3850
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Casal
authors.forename: Olívia
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9477-8638
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pinho
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7035-7799
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Moreira
authors.forename: Patrícia
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6310-4956
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Padrão
authors.forename: Nuno
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1870-1430
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lunet
keywords: Mozambique; commerce; fast foods; marketing