Food Policy Council Self-Assessment Tool: Development, Testing, and Results

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Community Nutrition
• Food Systems Research

Background:

• Numerous food policy councils (FPCs) operate across North America, yet lack standardized tools for assessing their organizational capacity, social capital, and effectiveness.
• Existing gaps hinder the identification of best practices and the measurement of progress within and between FPCs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Food Policy Council Self-Assessment Tool (FPC-SAT) for measuring FPC members' perceptions.
• To assess key concepts including leadership, membership engagement, climate, structure, knowledge sharing, relationships, empowerment, community context, synergy, and food system impacts.

Main Methods:

• The FPC-SAT was developed and administered to 354 members from 94 FPCs across the United States, Canada, and Tribal Nations.
• Psychometric properties were evaluated using internal reliability (Cronbach's α) and inter-rater reliability (AD, r_WG(J), ICC).
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to validate the assessment's structure.

Main Results:

• The FPC-SAT demonstrated strong internal reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.79–0.93).
• FPC members reported the lowest mean scores for breadth of active membership (2.49), suggesting a need for enhancement.
• The highest mean scores were reported for leadership (3.45), indicating a perceived strength.

Conclusions:

• The validated FPC-SAT is a reliable instrument for evaluating food policy council performance.
• The tool can identify FPC strengths and areas needing improvement, facilitating targeted interventions.
• FPC-SAT enables comparative analysis across councils and tracking of changes over time.