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

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 multi-step 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 healthcare 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.