Defining Neighbourhoods as a Measure of Exposure to the Food Environment.

ABSTRACT: Neighbourhoods are frequently used as a measure for individuals' exposure to the food environment. However, the definitions of neighbourhoods fluctuate and have not been applied consistently in previous studies. Neighbourhoods defined from a single fixed location fail to capture people's complete exposure in multiple locations, but measuring behaviour using traditional methods can be challenging. This study compares the traditional methods of measuring exposure to the food environment to methods that use data from GPS tracking. For each of the 187 participants, 11 different neighbourhoods were created in which the exposure to supermarkets and fast food outlets were measured. ANOVA, Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) test and t-tests were performed to compare the neighbourhoods.

SUBMITTER: Lyseen AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4515733 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature