Compare methods

	Nutrition Environment Measures Survey	In-Store Food Availability Audit
Field	Food Agriculture Studies	Food Agriculture Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2007	2007
Originator	Karen Glanz, James F. Sallis, Brian E. Saelens & Lawrence D. Frank	Food-environment field-audit tradition (general observational protocol; cf. Glanz, Saelens & colleagues' instruments)
Type	Observational audit pipeline for the consumer nutrition environment	Structured observational field-audit pipeline
Seminal source	Glanz, K., Sallis, J. F., Saelens, B. E., & Frank, L. D. (2007). Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S): Development and Evaluation. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32(4), 282-289.	Glanz, K., Sallis, J. F., Saelens, B. E., & Frank, L. D. (2007). Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S): Development and Evaluation. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32(4), 282-289.
Aliases	NEMS, NEMS-S, NEMS-R, Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey	Store Food Audit, Food Availability Audit, Retail Food Observation Protocol, In-Store Food Environment Audit
Related	4	4
Summary	The Nutrition Environment Measures Survey (NEMS) is a family of structured observation instruments for assessing the consumer nutrition environment — the in-store and in-restaurant conditions that shape what people can actually buy and eat. Developed by Karen Glanz, James Sallis, Brian Saelens and Lawrence Frank and published in 2007, NEMS-S audits retail food stores and NEMS-R audits restaurants, each scoring the availability, price and quality of healthier options relative to standard ones. Trained raters apply a fixed protocol so that two independent observers reach the same verdict, and the resulting scores let researchers compare neighbourhoods, link environments to diet and obesity, and evaluate interventions. NEMS is widely regarded as a foundational, validated tool for measuring the food environment and has been adapted across diverse settings since its release.	An in-store food availability audit is a structured observational protocol in which a trained auditor physically visits a food outlet and records, against a predefined checklist, which foods are stocked, at what prices, and in what condition. It is the general field-audit method that underpins much food-environment research: rather than inferring access from business listings, the auditor walks the aisles and documents reality. The approach was crystallised by validated instruments such as Glanz, Saelens and colleagues' Nutrition Environment Measures Survey, but the audit logic — define an item list, sample outlets, train raters, observe systematically, and check reliability — is a reusable protocol that researchers adapt to corner stores, supermarkets, markets, pharmacies and informal vendors. The output is a direct, reproducible characterisation of what people can actually buy where they live.