Food Environments (FEs) are rapidly changing in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), contributing to the growing burden of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) while undernutrition continues to persist. However, there remains a critical gap regarding how to best measure FEs in diverse settings and to monitor FEs over time, including in response to interventions. The lack of standardized, systematic, and commonly accepted approaches to evaluating FEs limits the ability to compare FEs across contexts and, to evaluate FE interventions towards identifying patterns of how FEs are influencing food security, diets, nutrition, and health outcomes.

Building on formative work characterizing FEs in multiple LMICs, developing FE tools and compiling a repository of existing FE tools, this project will develop a Food Environment Toolbox that will serve as a guidance document and web portal of specific FE tools to implement in various contexts.

The Food Environment Toolbox is intended to be a guidance document and web portal that will be comprised of a set of tools suitable for LMICs that are low-burden and field-friendly for assessing the external (objective) and personal (perceived) dimensions of wild, cultivated, and built FEs. It will be a ‘one stop shop’ for the selection and implementation of FE tools as well as their data collection, analysis and interpretation protocols. The various tools in the Toolbox are related to each other in that they all examine a specific dimension of the FE. Collectively, the evidence provided by the implementation of the collection of tools in the Toolbox will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted aspects of the FE. The specific aims for the project are:

1) Development of personal FE tool for LMICs;

2) Modification of external FE tools for LMICs;

3) Pilot testing and refinement of FE tools; and

4) Development of guidance protocols for application of the FE Toolbox and selection of specific tools, ‘how to’ videos as well as a FE Toolbox Dashboard that will enable the comparison of FE dimensions.

The FE Toolbox is unique in its applicability as a guidance protocol for diverse LMIC settings and its inclusion of practical tools for measuring the different dimensions of both the personal and external FE, directly addressing existing gaps in FE scholarship and practice.