Short-Form Audit Instrument for Assessing Corner Store Healthfulness

PURPOSE: To develop a valid and feasible short-form corner store audit tool (SCAT) that could be used in-store or over the phone to capture the healthfulness of corner stores. DESIGN: Nonexperimental. SETTING: Four New Jersey cities. SUBJECTS: Random selection of 229 and 96 corner stores in rounds 1 and 2, respectively. MEASURES: An adapted version of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Corner Stores (NEMS-CS) was used to conduct in-store audits. The 7-item SCAT was developed and used for round 2 phone audits. ANALYSIS: Exploratory factor analysis and item response theory were used to develop the SCAT. RESULTS: The SCAT was highly correlated with the adapted NEMS-CS ( r = .79). Short-form corner store audit tool scores placed stores in the same healthfulness categories as did the adapted NEMS-CS in 88% of the cases. Phone response matches indicated that store owners did not distinguish between 2% and low-fat milk and tended to round up the fruit and vegetable count to 5 if they had fewer varieties. CONCLUSION: The SCAT discriminates between higher versus lower healthfulness scores of corner stores and is feasible for use as a phone audit tool.