Utilizing the USDA’s National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey to Calculate a Household-Level Food Environment Measure

by Michele Ver Ploeg, Benjamin Scharadin, Lauren Miller, Jeffrey Gonzalez, and Rodney Odom

This report calculates a household-level Food Retail Environment Healthfulness Quality (FREHQ) measure utilizing the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) in conjunction with Circana’s (formerly IRI) OmniMarket Core Outlets (formerly IRI InfoScan) and USDA’s Purchase to Plate Suite (PP-Suite). The measure approximates a household’s exposure to a healthy food retail space, weighting each store within a 20-mile radius of a household by its distance from the household. The FREHQ measure allows for greater household heterogeneity and more nuanced analyses of the influence of the food retail environment on household food spending, food security, and other diet-related health conditions.

Keywords: National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), Circana, IRI Retail Panel, Purchase to Plate Tool, food retail environment, household-level healthy food access, inverse distance weighting function

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