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This document provides guidance on data analysis for the Food Environment Toolbox. Before reviewing this document, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the tools included in the Food Environment Toolbox. For a quick overview of each of the tools, you can review each of the tools’ cover pages. The instructions manual for each of the tools provides definitions of the terminology used throughout the data analysis guidance. We recommend referring to the instructions manual while conducting data analysis.

Depending on their research questions and needs, research teams may decide to analyze data in ways that differ from the guidance provided in this document. As the Food Environment Toolbox team continues to work on the validation of the tools, please consider this document as a dynamic one. In future work, we plan to pursue scoring systems that can be used with the data captured from the different tools. Additionally, as with all data, we recommend that research teams begin the analysis process by conducting data cleaning and quality checks.

Data analysis guidance