In recent years, the role of neighbourhoods has been increasingly investigated with respect to obesity in children. [1][2][3] Neighbourhood built environments may promote childhood obesity by favouring antecedent behaviours, including physical inactivity and unhealthful diets. Compared with physical activity, fewer studies have addressed children's diets. 1 Most studies examining associations between local neighbourhood availability of food establishments and residents' diets have focused on adults. 4 Overall, findings from studies involving children are less consistent, notably for associations between access to supermarkets and vegetable and fruit (V&F) intake. [5][6][7] Greater access to convenience stores, which typically offer limited fresh produce, has been found to be associated with lower V&F intake 5,7 and higher intake of sweet/salty snacks 6 and sugar-sweetened beverages 8 in youth. Although some studies have reported associations between the availability of fast-food restaurants near children's residence and their diets, 7,8 others do not support such findings. 6,9,10 Given the conflicting results in the literature, there is a need to clarify the relation between neighbourhood food environments and children's diets.In addition to residential neighbourhoods, school neighbourhood environments are relevant activity spaces and should be investigated in relation to obesity-related behaviours in children. 11,12 During the academic year, travel to and from school exposes children to school neighbourhood food environments. Recently, policies have targeted in-school food environments, but initiatives aimed at regulating food opportunities in school neighbourhoods have yet to be widely implemented. Fast-food restaurants and convenience stores are known to cluster within short distances from schools. 13,14 However, it is not clear to what extent the availability of the latter is associated with children's diet. 2,9

BackgroundParks are increasingly being viewed as a resource that may influence youth obesity and physical activity (PA). Assessing park quality can be challenging as few tools assess park characteristics geared towards youth PA. Additionally, no studies have compared reliability estimates of items assessed in different countries, hindering aims towards generalizable park audit items. Finally, new satellite imaging technology is allowing for desktop identification of parks, however it remains unclear how this compares to direct observation park identification. The purpose of this study is 1) to describe the development and reliability of a youth-oriented direct-observation park audit tool tested in Montreal, Canada, and; 2) to compare reliability estimates of items with those drawn from a tool previously tested in Perth, Australia, with those same items tested in Montreal, Canada.MethodsItems were drawn and adapted from two existing tools and 13 new items were newly developed for a total of 92 items. Parks were pre-identified using a GIS software and then verified and audited on-site by observers. A total of 576 parks were evaluated. Cohen’s kappa and percent agreement were used to assess the inter- and intra-rater reliability of each item. Inter-rater reliabilities of 17 items drawn from a tool previously tested in Australia were compared.ResultsEighty-six percent of items had ≥ 75 % agreement and 83 % had kappa coefficients between 0.41 and 1. Among 40 test-retest episodes kappa agreement was relatively high (≥ 0.40) for all but four items. Percent agreement was excellent (≥ 75 % agreement) for all but eight items. Inter-rater reliability estimates of the 17 items tested in Montreal and Perth were of similar magnitude.ConclusionsThe tool is generally reliable and can be used to assess park characteristics that may be associated with youth PA. The items tested in Montreal and Perth are likely generalizable to other urban environments.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-2209-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.