Enumeration

The Enumeration Steps 1. Defining survey area 2. Obtaining food outlet lists 3. Getting a street list 4. Classifying the food outlets 5. Tidying up the lists 6. Assigning id numbers

First Step How will you define your survey area? –Census tracts –Zip codes –Cities/towns/counties –Recognized “named” neighborhoods –Natural physical boundaries (lakes, highways, railroad tracks, etc.)

Second Step Obtain food outlet lists –Contact your state’s Health Department for a listing of restaurants in the county or counties of the survey area. –Contact your state’s Department of Agriculture for a listing of convenience and grocery stores.

Third Step Obtain a list of the streets and address ranges that are included in the defined survey area

Fourth Step…on to the lists! Using the addresses listed under each food outlet, determine whether each one falls within your survey area by looking at your streets list. When you determine that one does, mark/highlight it based on the category you think it might be. –Stores: grocery, convenience, other –Restaurants: sit-down, fast casual, fast food, specialty, other –Don’t know, needs follow up Remember to be consistent with your other team members as to how a category will be indicated (i.e., everyone is using the same method for each category)

Still with the lists… Once you have classified the stores and restaurants, go back through the lists to determine how to classify the don’t knows. This can be usually done by searching the internet or calling the place to simply ask (e.g., are they a grocery store? convenience store?). You may also need to follow up on ones you already classified that have missing information (e.g., phone number).

Fifth Step Now that you have all of the restaurants and stores classified on your food outlet lists, you will need to create your own spreadsheet so the stores and restaurants are neatly grouped together. Go down the list and enter all of the food outlets (and their respective information) that fall into each specified category (e.g., sit down restaurants). Make sure the places listed under each category are in alphabetical order or in order by street address and zip code.

Sixth and Seventh Steps Assign each restaurant and store an id number Create a new spreadsheet from your old one, sorting the streets alphabetically. This is useful when assigning stores or restaurants to raters so they can rate multiple stores or restaurants that are located on the same street.

Potential Challenges What to do when raters are out in the field and… –the store or restaurant doesn’t exist? Or has moved to a new location? –a store or restaurant is at the location but it isn’t the one that was on the list? –They notice a store or restaurant in the area to rate that wasn’t on the list at all Quality assurance –Make sure that NEMS raters know the protocol and if they aren’t sure, ask as it will save you time later on when cleaning the data!

Potential Applications

Concluding Thoughts… Enumeration isn’t easy…but it is the foundation for conducting the survey