Validity of Secondary Retail Food Outlet Data: A Systematic Review

Improving access to healthy foods is a promising strategy to prevent nutrition-related chronic diseases. To characterize retail food environments and identify areas with limited retail access, researchers, government programs, and community advocates have primarily used secondary retail food outlet data sources (e.g., InfoUSA or government food registries). To advance the state of the science on measuring retail food environments, this systematic review examined the evidence for validity reported for secondary retail food outlet data sources for characterizing retail food environments.