Community Food Environment Mapping: Roadside Food and Beverage Promotion

Overview of Roadside Food and Beverage Promotion. The Roadside Food and Beverage Promotion tool isdesigned to assess the roadside food and beverage promotions in a given community. It is one of three community food environment mapping tools included in the Food Environment Toolbox that can be used either in combination or standalone. After identifying the boundaries of a given community that will be included in the mapping, enumerators will visit each roadside food and beverage promotions and document the GPS coordinates, the promotion type, as well as specifying which food groups the promotion targets. Please note that promotions at specific food outlets are captured in the food outlet census tool. The roadside promotion tool is informed by the USAID Advancing Nutrition Market Mapping assessment and the Environmental Profile of a Community’s Health (EPOCH) which the promotion module is based on (Chow et al., 2010; USAID AN, 2023). This tool provides insight into the types and quantity of roadside food and beverage promotions in a community.

To assess the type and number of roadside food and beverage promotions in the community.

This tool should be used when you want to comprehensively capture food promotion in the community and promotions are found on the roadside (i.e., not just at individual vendors).

A census of all roadside food and beverage promotions within the community boundaries, as defined by the research team.

The roadside promotion tool captures the external food environment as well as capturing information about the built food environment.

Roadside food and beverage promotion assesses the promotion dimension of the food environment.

An enumerator completes the observational checklist for each of the roadside promotions.

GPS coordinates for each roadside promotion
Observational checklist for each roadside promotion

The data obtained can be spatially analyzed based on the types of foods promoted. Indicators related to the proportion of “healthy” and “unhealthy” food groups that are promoted can also be calculated.

The tool is easy to use, it allows for real-time data checks if using an electronic tablet to collect data and can provide maps depicting the density of promotions.

It can be difficult to identify the boundaries of the community to include in the sampling, enumerators may have some difficulties with classifying foods according to food groups, and the tool may not be relevant in all contexts.

Chow, C.K. et al. 2010. Environmental Profile of a Community’s Health (EPOCH): an instrument to measure environmental determinants of cardiovascular health in five countries. PloS one, 5(12), p.e14294.

USAID Advancing Nutrition. 2023. Guidelines for Market-Based Food Environment Assessments. Instruction Manual. Arlington, VA: USAID Advancing Nutrition.