Development and Validation of a Short Questionnaire Assessing the Behavior of Local Food Procurement in Quebec, Canada

Abstract

Background Very few validated instruments, particularly screening tools applicable to large cohort studies, are available to assess the behavior of local food procurement. Objective To develop and validate a short questionnaire that measures local food procurement in a sample of French-speaking adults from Québec, Canada and to assess the association between local food procurement behavior and diet quality. Methods A comprehensive questionnaire developed previously to measure local food procurement (Locavore-Index [I]) was simplified through a series of steps that included face-validity, exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing (internal consistency). Construct validity of the resulting short Locavore-I-short form (Locavore-I-SF) was examined in a sample of 299 adults (85% women) from Québec City Metropolitan Community. Results The Locavore-I-SF comprises 12 questions that measure the frequency of short food supply chain use (self-production, farmers’ market and community supported agriculture box scheme) for three locally produced foods (carrot, tomato and lettuce) as well as the geographical origin of those three foods. The Locavore-I-SF, which is scored on a 12-point scale, had a high internal consistency (Cronbach alpha 0.74). The Locavore-I-SF scores were strongly correlated with the reference scores obtained from the Locavore-I from which it was developed (r = 0.84, p < 0.0001). Locavore-I-SF scores also correlated (r = 0.50, p < 0.0001) with the geographical origin of foods measured by pictures of food label taken by participants. Higher Locavore-I-SF scores were associated with behaviors consistent with eating local foods such as gardening (vs not gardening, mean (±SEM) difference 2.3 ± 0.4 points, p < 0.0001) and not being preoccupied by the foods’ appearance standards (vs being preoccupied, 1.4 ± 0.4 points, p = 0.0002). Finally, the Locavore-I-SF scores were weakly associated with the Healthy Eating Food Index-2019 score (Beta = 0.05 ± 0.02, p = 0.02). Conclusion The Locavore-I-SF, a short questionnaire based on three locally produced foods in Québec, measures the behavior local food procurement with good reliability and acceptable validity metrics.