The American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) published proceedings from a November 2007 workshop on “Measures of the Food and Built Environments.” The workshop was co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) National Cancer Institute; the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development; the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the NIH Division of Nutrition Research and Coordination.

The proceedings, which appear in an April 2009 supplement of AJPM, highlight the need for 1) better reporting of measures of food and physical environments; 2) tailored, validated measures for populations at high risk for obesity (e.g., rural, low-income, racial/ethnic minority communities); and 3) refinement of conceptual models.