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. 2008 Feb;50(2):126-37.
doi: 10.1097/JOM.0b013e318161b42a.

Development of the Environmental Assessment Tool (EAT) to measure organizational physical and social support for worksite obesity prevention programs

David M Dejoy  1 , Mark G Wilson, Ron Z Goetzel, Ronald J Ozminkowski, Shaohung Wang, Kristin M Baker, Heather M Bowen, Karen J Tully
Affiliations

Development of the Environmental Assessment Tool (EAT) to measure organizational physical and social support for worksite obesity prevention programs

David M Dejoy et al. J Occup Environ Med. 2008 Feb.

Abstract

Objective: To describe the development, reliability, and validity of the Environmental Assessment Tool (EAT) for assessing worksite physical and social environmental support for obesity prevention.

Methods: The EAT was developed using a multistep process. Inter-rater reliability was estimated via Kappa and other measures. Concurrent and predictive validity were estimated using site-level correlations and person-level multiple regression analyses comparing EAT scores and employee absenteeism and health care expenditures.

Results: Results show high inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity for many measures and predictive validity for absenteeism expenditures.

Conclusions: The primary use of the EAT is as a physical and social environment assessment tool for worksite obesity prevention efforts. It can be used as a reliable and valid means to estimate relationships between environmental interventions and absenteeism and medical expenditures, provided those expenditures are for the same year that the EAT is administered.

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