Capturing the healthfulness of the in-store environments of United Kingdom supermarket stores over 5 months (January–May 2019)
Capturing the healthfulness of the in-store environments of United Kingdom supermarket stores over 5 months (January–May 2019)
Introduction: Numerous environmental factors within supermarkets can influence the healthfulness of food purchases. This research aims to identify the changes in store healthfulness scores and assess the variations by store type and neighborhood deprivation using an adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool. Methods: Between January and May 2019, a total of 104 supermarkets in London were surveyed on 1–3 occasions. The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool included data on 9 variables (variety, price, quality, promotions, shelf placement, store placement, nutrition information, healthier alternatives, and single fruit sale) for 11 healthy and 5 less healthy food items. An algorithm was used to create a composite score of in-store healthfulness and to assess inter-rater reliability. Longitudinal changes in overall store healthfulness and individual variables were investigated using multivariable hierarchical mixed models. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the differences by store type and neighborhood deprivation in each month. All analyses were conducted between January and July 2020. Results: The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool showed acceptable inter-rater reliability. Large stores exhibited healthier environments than small stores (p<0.001), with a similar pattern for each of the 9 individual variables. Within large stores, the overall healthfulness score did not change over the study period. Promotions on more healthful items increased in February (p=0.04), and the availability of healthier alternatives for less healthy foods decreased in March (p=0.01). Within small stores, there was a trend toward increasing healthfulness (p<0.001), primarily owing to more promotions on healthy items (p<0.001). There was no difference in overall healthfulness by neighborhood deprivation. Conclusions: The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool is sensitive to longitudinal changes in environmental variables that contribute to store healthfulness. A wider application of this tool could be used to map in-store environments to identify targets for interventions to encourage healthier food purchasing.
e171-e179
Harmer, Georgina
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Jebb, Susan A.
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Ntani, Georgia
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Vogel, Christina
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Piernas, Carmen
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October 2021
Harmer, Georgina
aae058d7-01e6-4555-9f99-d7abfd2c9fb9
Jebb, Susan A.
f90c6f0c-da8d-4e00-b40f-38d624fc2d38
Ntani, Georgia
9b009e0a-5ab2-4c6e-a9fd-15a601e92be5
Vogel, Christina
768f1dcd-2697-4aae-95cc-ee2f6d63dff5
Piernas, Carmen
e0bedebb-c38c-42a9-90be-dc1a88433c35
Harmer, Georgina, Jebb, Susan A., Ntani, Georgia, Vogel, Christina and Piernas, Carmen
(2021)
Capturing the healthfulness of the in-store environments of United Kingdom supermarket stores over 5 months (January–May 2019).
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 61 (4), .
(doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2021.04.012).
Abstract
Introduction: Numerous environmental factors within supermarkets can influence the healthfulness of food purchases. This research aims to identify the changes in store healthfulness scores and assess the variations by store type and neighborhood deprivation using an adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool. Methods: Between January and May 2019, a total of 104 supermarkets in London were surveyed on 1–3 occasions. The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool included data on 9 variables (variety, price, quality, promotions, shelf placement, store placement, nutrition information, healthier alternatives, and single fruit sale) for 11 healthy and 5 less healthy food items. An algorithm was used to create a composite score of in-store healthfulness and to assess inter-rater reliability. Longitudinal changes in overall store healthfulness and individual variables were investigated using multivariable hierarchical mixed models. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the differences by store type and neighborhood deprivation in each month. All analyses were conducted between January and July 2020. Results: The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool showed acceptable inter-rater reliability. Large stores exhibited healthier environments than small stores (p<0.001), with a similar pattern for each of the 9 individual variables. Within large stores, the overall healthfulness score did not change over the study period. Promotions on more healthful items increased in February (p=0.04), and the availability of healthier alternatives for less healthy foods decreased in March (p=0.01). Within small stores, there was a trend toward increasing healthfulness (p<0.001), primarily owing to more promotions on healthy items (p<0.001). There was no difference in overall healthfulness by neighborhood deprivation. Conclusions: The adapted Consumer Nutrition Environment tool is sensitive to longitudinal changes in environmental variables that contribute to store healthfulness. A wider application of this tool could be used to map in-store environments to identify targets for interventions to encourage healthier food purchasing.
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Store Environment Paper Final Accepted
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Accepted/In Press date: 20 April 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 June 2021
Published date: October 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
GH, CP, and SJ are funded by the NIH Applied Research Collaborations Oxford. CV and GN are supported by funding from the UK Medical Research Council ( MC_UU_12011/4 ) and the National Institute of Health Research Public Health Research Programme (Grant Funding, 17/44/46 ).
Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding received from Guy's and St Thomas’ Charity (Grant EIC181003 ). The authors also like to acknowledge the support from Public Health England and The Food Foundation in recruiting data collectors. The authors would like to thank the data collectors themselves for conducting the store surveys and the participating supermarkets and store managers for allowing the data collectors to take the necessary measurements for this research.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding received from Guy's and St Thomas? Charity (Grant EIC181003). The authors also like to acknowledge the support from Public Health England and The Food Foundation in recruiting data collectors. The authors would like to thank the data collectors themselves for conducting the store surveys and the participating supermarkets and store managers for allowing the data collectors to take the necessary measurements for this research. The study sponsor had no role in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or the decision to submit the report for publication. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Health Service, National Institute of Health Research, or the United Kingdom (UK) Department of Health and Social Care. GH, CP, and SJ are funded by the NIH Applied Research Collaborations Oxford. CV and GN are supported by funding from the UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12011/4) and the National Institute of Health Research Public Health Research Programme (Grant Funding, 17/44/46). SJ is funded by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Obesity, Diet and Lifestyle Theme. CP, CV, and SJ participated in the design of the study. GH and CP adapted the audit tool with input from GN, CV, and SJ. GH and CP coordinated the data collection, healthfulness score development, and analyses and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. GN and CV contributed to the development of the healthfulness score and performed some of the statistical analyses. SJ, GN, and CV provided critical revisions to the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript. CV has a nonfinancial research relationship with a UK food retail company and maintains independence in all evaluation activities. However, this article is not related to this relationship. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests. No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 449997
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449997
ISSN: 0749-3797
PURE UUID: 205bc241-d81f-4f13-a3d1-2ddf5f95ef20
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Date deposited: 02 Jul 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:20
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Author:
Georgina Harmer
Author:
Susan A. Jebb
Author:
Carmen Piernas
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