Associations between the Neighbourhood Food Environment, Neighbourhood Socioeconomic Status and Diet Quality in Canadian Adults

Abstract

High quality diet is integral for maintaining health and preventing chronic diseases. Diet quality has many determinants that interact across the intra-individual, inter-individual, physical environment, and policy levels of influence. This thesis presents a novel method to create Canada’s Food Guide serving equivalents in the Canadian Diet History Questionnaire II nutrient database for the purpose of deriving the Canadian Healthy Eating Index (C-HEI). The C-HEI was used as a measure of diet quality in an analytical study investigating the potential independent and joint effects of the neighbourhood food environment and neighbourhood socioeconomic status on diet quality of adults living in Calgary, Alberta. The density of all neighbourhood food destinations, but not neighbourhood socioeconomic status independently or jointly with neighbourhood food destination density, plays a small role in diet quality of Calgary adults. With additional research, these findings may help inform population level interventions aimed at improving diet quality for all Canadians.