Development and Validation of a Simple Convenience Store SHELF Audit.

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Public Health
• Health Promotion

Background:

• Convenience stores are a significant source of food for many individuals.
• Assessing the healthfulness of food environments in convenience stores is crucial for public health initiatives.
• Existing tools for evaluating convenience store food offerings may lack practicality or comprehensive assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Convenience Store Supportive Healthy Environment for Life-Promoting Food (SHELF) Audit.
• To assess the reliability and convergent validity of the SHELF Audit.
• To evaluate the healthfulness of food environments in convenience stores using the SHELF Audit.

Main Methods:

• Development of the SHELF Audit tool, encompassing fresh/processed/frozen produce, dairy, healthy staples, incentive programs, checkout items, portion sizes, and pricing.
• Scoring of audit items using a five-point semantic-differential scale.
• Statistical analyses including factor analysis, ANOVA, and Spearman correlations to determine reliability and convergent validity against established store audits.

Main Results:

• The SHELF Audit demonstrated good reliability with three factors: Fruits/Vegetables (α = 0.79), Healthy Foods (α = 0.72), and Supports (α = 0.685).
• Only 6% of assessed convenience stores achieved the highest healthfulness score.
• Drug stores scored higher than convenience stores on Healthy Foods and Supports, but not Fruits/Vegetables. SHELF sub-scores showed high correlations with other audit tools.

Conclusions:

• The SHELF convenience store audit is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating the healthfulness of food environments.
• The audit effectively assesses support for fruits/vegetables, healthy foods, and healthy choices in convenience stores.
• Findings indicate a need for interventions to improve the healthfulness of food offerings in convenience stores.