Geographic retail food environment measures for use in public health

The Association of Public Health Epidemiologists in Ontario (APHEO) Core Indicators Work Group standardizes definitions and calculation methods for over 120 public health indicators to enhance accurate and standardized community health status reporting across public health units in Ontario. The Built Environment Subgroup is a multi-disciplinary group made up of planners, researchers, policy analysts, registered dietitians, geographic information systems (GIS) analysts and epidemiologists. The Subgroup selected and operationalized a suite of objective, standardized indicators intended to help public health units and regional health authorities assess their community retail food environments. The Subgroup proposed three indicators that use readily available data sources and GIS tools to characterize geographic access to various types of retail food outlets within neighbourhoods in urban settings. This article provides a status report on the development of these food environment indicators.