Instruments and indicators for assessing organisational food environments: a scoping review protocol

Introduction

Many studies have explored the food environment to characterise it and understand its role in food practices. Assessment of the organisational food environment can contribute to the development of more effective interventions to promote adequate and healthy eating. However, few instruments and indicators have been developed and validated for assessing this type of setting. The systematisation of those can be useful to support the planning of future assessments and the development of wide-ranging instruments. This study aims to conduct a scoping review to systematise evidence on instruments and indicators for assessing organisational food environments.

Methods and analysis

This scoping review was planned according to the methodological framework for scoping reviews proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and subsequently enhanced by Levac et al. For the report of the review, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist and guidelines will be used. The search will be conducted using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus and Google Scholar databases. The studies to be included were required to have been published in peer-reviewed journals since January 2005. No geographical, population or language restrictions will be applied given the desired breadth of the review. Two researchers will select the articles and extract the data independently. The conceptual model proposed by Castro and Canella will guide the data extraction and analysis. The results will be presented with narrative synthesis for the extracted data accompanying the tabulated and charted results.

Ethics and dissemination

This study is based on the analysis of published scientific literature and did not involve patients, medical research, or any type of personal information; therefore, no ethical approval was obtained for this study. The results of this scoping review will be submitted for publication in an international peer-reviewed journal, preferably open access.

Environmental factors of food insecurity in adolescents: A scoping review protocol

by Laura Capitán-Moyano, Nerea Cañellas-Iniesta, María Arias-Fernández, Miquel Bennasar-Veny, Aina M. Yáñez, Enrique Castro-Sánchez

Food insecurity in recent years has increased worldwide due to many planetary events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, the climate crisis, and globalization of markets. Adolescents are a particularly vulnerable group to food insecurity, as they enter adulthood with less parental supervision and greater personal autonomy, but less legislative or institutional protection. The experience of food insecurity in adolescents is influenced by several environmental factors at different levels (interpersonal, organizational, community, and societal), although they are not usually addressed in the design of interventions, prioritizing the individual behavioural factors. We present a scoping review protocol for assessing and identifying the environmental factors that could influence adolescents’ food insecurity. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) and the PRISMA guidelines for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) to prepare the protocol. The search strategy will be performed in the following databases: Pubmed/Medline, EMBASE, Biblioteca Virtual de Salud, EBSCOHost, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library Plus. The reference list of the included studies will also be hand-searched. Grey literature will be search through the electronic database Grey Literature Report, and local, provincial, national, and international organisations’ websites. Assessment of eligibility after screening of titles, abstract and full text, and the resolution of discrepancies will be performed by three independent reviewers. This scoping review will contribute to refine the “logic model of the problem” which constitutes the first step in the intervention mapping protocol. The “logic model of the problem” from the intervention mapping protocol will serve to classify and analyse the environmental factors. The findings from this review will be presented to relevant stakeholders that have a role in shaping the environmental factors.