Food environment factors--such as store/restaurant proximity, food prices, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics--interact to influence food choices and diet quality. Research is beginning to document the complexity of these interactions, but more is needed to identify causal relationships and effective policy interventions. The objectives of the Atlas are
to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality, and to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so.

The Research and Development Survey (RANDS) is a series of cross-sectional
surveys from probability-sampled commercial survey panels which began in 2015.
RANDS 1 was administered by Gallup using the Gallup Panel in the fall of 2015
and contains existing questions from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

The Research and Development Survey (RANDS) is a series of cross-sectional
surveys from probability-sampled commercial survey panels which began in 2015.
RANDS 2 was administered by Gallup using the Gallup Panel in the spring of 2016
and contains existing questions from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
as well as embedded probe questions for cognitive evaluations.