scholarly journals Government data v. ground observation for food-environment assessment: businesses missed and misreported by city and state inspection records

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1414-1427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean C Lucan ◽  
Andrew R Maroko ◽  
Courtney Abrams ◽  
Noemi Rodriguez ◽  
Achint N Patel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Predictive Value ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
State Inspection ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Ground Observation ◽  
Government Data ◽  
Government Records ◽  
Street Segments

AbstractObjective:To assess the accuracy of government inspection records, relative to ground observation, for identifying businesses offering foods/drinks.Design:Agreement between city and state inspection records v. ground observations at two levels: businesses and street segments. Agreement could be ‘strict’ (by business name, e.g. ‘Rizzo’s’) or ‘lenient’ (by business type, e.g. ‘pizzeria’); using sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) for businesses and using sensitivity, PPV, specificity and negative predictive value (NPV) for street segments.Setting:The Bronx and the Upper East Side (UES), New York City, USA.Participants:All food/drink-offering businesses on sampled street segments (n 154 in the Bronx, n 51 in the UES).Results:By ‘strict’ criteria, sensitivity and PPV of government records for food/drink-offering businesses were 0·37 and 0·57 in the Bronx; 0·58 and 0·60 in the UES. ‘Lenient’ values were 0·40 and 0·62 in the Bronx; 0·60 and 0·62 in the UES. Sensitivity, PPV, specificity and NPV of government records for street segments having food/drink-offering businesses were 0·66, 0·73, 0·84 and 0·79 in the Bronx; 0·79, 0·92, 0·67, and 0·40 in the UES. In both areas, agreement varied by business category: restaurants; ‘food stores’; and government-recognized other storefront businesses (‘gov. OSB’, i.e. dollar stores, gas stations, pharmacies). Additional business categories – ‘other OSB’ (barbers, laundromats, newsstands, etc.) and street vendors – were absent from government records; together, they represented 28·4 % of all food/drink-offering businesses in the Bronx, 22·2 % in the UES (‘other OSB’ and street vendors were sources of both healthful and less-healthful foods/drinks in both areas).Conclusions:Government records frequently miss or misrepresent businesses offering foods/drinks, suggesting caveats for food-environment assessments using such records.

scholarly journals Healthful and less-healthful foods and drinks from storefront and non-storefront businesses: implications for ‘food deserts’, ‘food swamps’ and food-source disparities

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1428-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean C Lucan ◽  
Andrew R Maroko ◽  
Achint N Patel ◽  
Ilirjan Gjonbalaj ◽  
Brian Elbel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Food Deserts ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Healthful Food ◽  
Street Segments

AbstractObjective:Conceptualisations of ‘food deserts’ (areas lacking healthful food/drink) and ‘food swamps’ (areas overwhelm by less-healthful fare) may be both inaccurate and incomplete. Our objective was to more accurately and completely characterise food/drink availability in urban areas.Design:Cross-sectional assessment of select healthful and less-healthful food/drink offerings from storefront businesses (stores, restaurants) and non-storefront businesses (street vendors).Setting:Two areas of New York City: the Bronx (higher-poverty, mostly minority) and the Upper East Side (UES; wealthier, predominantly white).Participants:All businesses on 63 street segments in the Bronx (n 662) and on 46 street segments in the UES (n 330).Results:Greater percentages of businesses offered any, any healthful, and only less-healthful food/drink in the Bronx (42·0 %, 37·5 %, 4·4 %, respectively) than in the UES (30 %, 27·9 %, 2·1 %, respectively). Differences were driven mostly by businesses (e.g. newsstands, gyms, laundromats) not primarily focused on selling food/drink – ‘other storefront businesses’ (OSBs). OSBs accounted for 36·0 % of all food/drink-offering businesses in the Bronx (more numerous than restaurants or so-called ‘food stores’) and 18·2 % in the UES (more numerous than ‘food stores’). Differences also related to street vendors in both the Bronx and the UES. If street vendors and OSBs were not captured, the missed percentages of street segments offering food/drink would be 14·5 % in the Bronx and 21·9 % in the UES.Conclusions:Of businesses offering food/drink in communities, OSBs and street vendors can represent substantial percentages. Focusing on only ‘food stores’ and restaurants may miss or mischaracterise ‘food deserts’, ‘food swamps’, and food/drink-source disparities between communities.

Book Reviews

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Book Reviews
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Transit Migration

Janitors, Street Vendors, and Activists: The Lives of Mexican Immigrants in Silicon Valley by Christian Zlolniski Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, 2006 ISBN 0520246438, 249 pp.The Archaeology of Xenitia: Greek Immigration and Material Culture Ed. by Kostis Kourelis Athens: Gennadius Library, 2008 ISBN 978-960-86960-6-8, 104 pp.  Transit Migration: The Missing Link between Emigration and Settlement by Aspasia Papadopoulou-Kourkoula New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 ISBN 0-230-55533-0, 177 pp.How Professors Think: Inside The Curious World of Academic Judgment, 1st Edition by Michele Lamont Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0674032668, 336 pp.

scholarly journals Street Food Stand Availability, Density, and Distribution Across Income Levels in Mexico City

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 3953
Author(s):  
Jose B. Rosales Chavez ◽  
Meg Bruening ◽  
Punam Ohri-Vachaspati ◽  
Rebecca E. Lee ◽  
Megan Jehn
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Local School ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Street Food ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
Rigorous Approach ◽  
Ground Truthing ◽  
Document Relationships ◽  
Street Segments

Street food stands (SFS) are an understudied element of the food environment. Previous SFS studies have not used a rigorous approach to document the availability, density, and distribution of SFS across neighborhood income levels and points of access in Mexico City. A random sample (n = 761) of street segments representing 20 low-, middle-, and high-income neighborhoods were assessed using geographic information system (GIS) and ground-truthing methods. All three income levels contained SFS. However, SFS availability and density were higher in middle-income neighborhoods. The distribution of SFS showed that SFS were most often found near homes, transportation centers, and worksites. SFS availability near schools may have been limited by local school policies. Additional studies are needed to further document relationships between SFS availability, density, and distribution, and current structures and processes.

Creating the Scratch Cooked School Food Framework: Qualitative Data Analysis of a Scratch Cooking Pilot

2021 ◽  
pp. 152483992110389
Author(s):  
Deeana Ijaz Ahmed ◽  
Raynika Trent ◽  
Pamela Koch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Food System ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
School Food ◽  
Intervention Level ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
School Food Environment

The purpose of this study is to develop a novel framework that outlines the system required to implement scratch cooking in school kitchens. The data used in this study were 57 interviews with key stakeholders during the Return to Scratch Cooking Pilot that occurred in two New York City school kitchens in 2018–2019 and made significant modifications to many aspects of the existing school food system. The guiding framework for the data analysis was Meadows’s Intervention Level Framework. Intervention Level Framework describes analyzing systems by examining five layers: (1) paradigm shift, (2) goals, (3) system structure (4) feedback and delays, and (5) structural elements. It also provides a framework for describing a system by defining its elements, interconnections, and purpose. Data analysis revealed four elements of the school food system: ingredients and recipes, kitchen, cooking, and the community. The interconnections that played a role in each of these elements were policies, practice, people, and promotion. Together, these four elements and four interconnections comprise the Scratch Cooked School Food framework, which has the purpose of being a tool for researchers and practitioners to utilize when planning, implementing, and evaluating scratch cooking in the school food environment.

scholarly journals Desenvolvimento e validação de instrumento para avaliar o impacto de um programa de intervenção em comércios de alimentos em área de deserto alimentar/Development and validity of an instrument to evaluate the impact of an intervention in food stores at an urban food desert

2018 ◽  
pp. 396-411
Author(s):  
Lucas Daniel Sanches ◽  
Renata Fagundes Lopes ◽  
Matheus Ribeiro Theodósio Fernandes Melzer ◽  
Maria Aparecida De Oliveira ◽  
Paula Andrea Martins
Keyword(s):  
Distribution System ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Intervention Program ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Food Distribution ◽  
Food Desert ◽  
Health Food ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Cronbach Alpha ◽  
The Impact

ResumoObjetivou-se desenvolver e validar um instrumento adequado para avaliar o impacto de um programa piloto de intervenção no ambiente alimentar local para promoção da alimentação saudável em comércios de varejo de alimentos da Zona Noroeste em Santos/SP, região caracterizada como deserto alimentar. Foi realizada pesquisa formativa para validação do instrumento, incluindo reuniões de pesquisadores, varredura no território estudado para identificação dos comércios de alimentos, visitas a atores do canal de distribuição de alimentos, oficinas comunitárias com a comunidade local e entrevistas em profundidade com proprietários dos estabelecimentos para validação de conteúdo e validade aparente. Foi testada confiabilidade do instrumento por coeficiente de alfa de Cronbach. O desenvolvimento do questionário incluiu questões para avaliação da Identificação e Caracterização do Comércio; Parâmetros de Comercialização, incluindo importância de fatores para a inclusão de um novo alimento, frequência de aquisição de produtos, rentabilidade; e Escala de Fatores Psicossociais, incluindo expectativa em relação às vendas de alimentos saudáveis, expectativa em relação ao impacto, e autoeficácia em relação à comercialização de alimentos saudáveis. A validação permitiu revisão de todas as questões e alternativas de resposta do questionário, com alfa de Cronbach variante de 0,440 a 0,967 nas questões do instrumento final. Este resultado indica que o instrumento proposto foi capaz de identificar características relevantes do sistema de distribuição de alimentos á nível local e pode ser utilizado em estudos epidemiológicos para avaliação de políticas públicas territoriais elaboradas para aumento do acesso a alimentos saudáveis.Palavras-chave: Estudos de Validação; Saúde da População Urbana; Ambiente Alimentar AbstractThe objective was to develop and validate a culturally appropriate instrument to evaluate the impact of a pilot intervention program in the food environment to promote healthy eating in small food stores in an urban food desert. A formative research was carried out for the validation of the instrument, including meetings of researchers, visits to all the streets in the study's region to identify food stores, visits to food distribution system agents', community workshops with the local community and in-depth interviews with food store owners for content and apparent validity. Instrument reliability was tested by Cronbach alpha coefficient. The development of the instrument included questions to evaluate the Identification and Characterization of Store; Marketing Parameters (i.e. influencers for including new food itens and frequency of product acquisition and profitability); and Psychosocial Factors Scale (i.e. expectations regarding healthy food sales, expectations regarding impact of intervention, and self-efficacy in relation to the marketing of healthy foods). Validation process allowed a review of all questions and questions' responses, with Cronbach alpha between 0.440 to 0.967 in the final instrument questions. It can be concluded that the instrument was developed to identify relevant characteristics of the food distribution system and can be used in epidemiological studies and public policies to evaluate increase access to healthy foods.Key words:Validation Studies; Urban Health; Food Environment

scholarly journals Rockland County On-Line Index Book Software Unearths Eighteenth Century Land Records for Use by the Legal Community, Historians and the General Public

Atlanti ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Author(s):  
Peter J. Scheibner
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New York State ◽  
Hard Copy ◽  
Records Management ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Home Computer ◽  
On Line ◽  
Government Records ◽  
Land Records

The Rockland County Clerk offers on-line land records searches from the ease of your home computer 24/7. This is a major improvement over searching records through index books manually or having to sift through rolls of microfilm or hard copy deeds or mortgages. We are excited to report that thanks to grants received from the New York State Archive Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund, all Rockland County deeds and mortgages from 1798 to 1929 can now be searched and printed from your home computer by logging on to www.rocklandcountyclerk.com. Through innovative software known as On Line Books (OIB) developed by Cott Systems, Inc., Rockland County was able to save major time and resources on not having to dataenter all index books from 1798-1929 and then matching these indexes with the hundreds of thousands of actual deeds and mortgage pages. The software is both unique and innovative. You will find the details of using OIB in this issue.

scholarly journals Comprehensive Whole-Genome Sequencing and Reporting of Drug Resistance Profiles on Clinical Cases of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in New York State

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (6) ◽  
pp. 1871-1882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Shea ◽  
Tanya A. Halse ◽  
Pascal Lapierre ◽  
Matthew Shudt ◽  
Donna Kohlerschmidt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Drug Resistance ◽  
Mycobacterium Tuberculosis ◽  
Whole Genome Sequencing ◽  
Genome Sequencing ◽  
Predictive Value ◽  
New York State ◽  
Whole Genome ◽  
Content Type ◽  
York State

ABSTRACTWhole-genome sequencing (WGS) is a newer alternative for tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics and is capable of providing rapid drug resistance profiles while performing species identification and capturing the data necessary for genotyping. Our laboratory developed and validated a comprehensive and sensitive WGS assay to characterizeMycobacterium tuberculosisand otherM. tuberculosiscomplex (MTBC) strains, composed of a novel DNA extraction, optimized library preparation, paired-end WGS, and an in-house-developed bioinformatics pipeline. This new assay was assessed using 608 MTBC isolates, with 146 isolates during the validation portion of this study and 462 samples received prospectively. In February 2016, this assay was implemented to test all clinical cases of MTBC in New York State, including isolates and early positive Bactec mycobacterial growth indicator tube (MGIT) 960 cultures from primary specimens. Since the inception of the assay, we have assessed the accuracy of identification of MTBC strains to the species level, concordance with culture-based drug susceptibility testing (DST), and turnaround time. Species identification by WGS was determined to be 99% accurate. Concordance between drug resistance profiles generated by WGS and culture-based DST methods was 96% for eight drugs, with an average resistance-predictive value of 93% and susceptible-predictive value of 96%. This single comprehensive WGS assay has replaced seven molecular assays and has resulted in resistance profiles being reported to physicians an average of 9 days sooner than with culture-based DST for first-line drugs and 32 days sooner for second-line drugs.

scholarly journals Cultural Adaptation and Evaluation of the Perceived Nutrition Environment Measures Survey to the Mediterranean Spanish Context (NEMS-P-MED)

Nutrients ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 3257
Author(s):  
Alba Martínez-García ◽  
Eva María Trescastro-López ◽  
María Eugenia Galiana-Sánchez ◽  
Cristóbal Llorens-Ivorra ◽  
Pamela Pereyra-Zamora
Keyword(s):  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Internal Consistency Reliability ◽  
Food Environments ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Nutrition Environment ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Measurement Tools ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Standardized Measurement

Individuals’ perceptions of their food environments are a mediator between exposure to the environment and people’s interaction with it. The Nutrition Environment Measures Surveys (NEMS) are valid and reliable measures to assess food environments. In Spain, there is no adapted instrument to measure the perceived obesogenic environment. This article aims to adapt and evaluate the Perceived Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for a Spanish context (NEMS-P-MED). The Spanish version has 32 questions to measure the perception about availability, accessibility and marketing of 3 types of environment: home, shops and restaurants. We assess feasibility, construct validity and internal consistency reliability through a sample of 95 individuals. The internal consistency was acceptable for most items (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients range from 0.6 to 0.9), similar to that of the original scale. The NEMS-P-MED has been shown to be valid and, on certain items reliable, and was useful to assess the population’s perceptions of the food environment in the home, restaurants and food stores in a Spanish context. Adapting standardized measurement tools to specific contexts to assess the perceived and observed characteristics of food environments may facilitate the development of effective policy interventions to reduce excess weight.

scholarly journals Characterizing the food environment: pitfalls and future directions

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1238-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Vernez Moudon ◽  
Adam Drewnowski ◽  
Glen E Duncan ◽  
Philip M Hurvitz ◽  
Brian E Saelens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Environment ◽  
Fast Food ◽  
Health Department ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Grocery Stores ◽  
Local Health ◽  
King County ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Food Stores

AbstractObjectiveTo assess a county population's exposure to different types of food sources reported to affect both diet quality and obesity rates.DesignFood permit records obtained from the local health department served to establish the full census of food stores and restaurants. Employing prior categorization schemes which classified the relative healthfulness of food sources based on establishment type (i.e. supermarkets v. convenience stores, or full-service v. fast-food restaurants), food establishments were assigned to the healthy, unhealthy or undetermined groups.SettingKing County, WA, USA.SubjectsFull census of food sources.ResultsAccording to all categorization schemes, most food establishments in King County fell into the unhealthy and undetermined groups. Use of the food permit data showed that large stores, which included supermarkets as healthy food establishments, contained a sizeable number of bakery/delis, fish/meat, ethnic and standard quick-service restaurants and coffee shops, all food sources that, when housed in a separate venue or owned by a different business establishment, were classified as either unhealthy or of undetermined value to health.ConclusionsTo fully assess the potential health effects of exposure to the extant food environment, future research would need to establish the health value of foods in many such common establishments as individually owned grocery stores and ethnic food stores and restaurants. Within-venue exposure to foods should also be investigated.

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