This article reviews the relatively new body of research on the food environment, offering a systematic effort to examine its findings and advance the field.

What researchers found: Research articles have focused on measuring the quality, affordability, and availability of the food environment. Only 13 percent of all articles used measures that were tested for reliability and validity. Increased use of validity and reliability measures may make research in this field more robust and increase the impact of the field on obesity-related policy.

Why we chose this publication: This literature review highlights the span of existing measures of the community-level food environment, and sets the benchmark for advancement in this area. Continuous development of these measures among diverse populations and settings, in addition to information sharing in peer-reviewed journals and Web sites, will strengthen future research results and inform the development of obesity-related interventions and policies.

What researchers studied: This article reviews the body of research on the food environment. This area of study is relatively new and there has not been a systematic effort to examine its findings. Researchers compiled 137 articles published between 1990 and 2007 that studied the food environment.