1. Why should our community complete the Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool (NEAT)?

Communities that support and maintain positive environments for people to make healthier food choices can enhance the personal status of its members. Obesity and overweight is a very pressing issue. In fact, 62% of Michigan adults are either overweight or obese. The Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool can be an important step toward making your community healthier. By completing NEAT, you receive feedback about the extent to which your community makes it easy for people to eat healthfully. Completing NEAT also helps you get ideas about changes and improvements your community might make to promote a healthier lifestyle. As you review the questions, you will see examples of policies, programs and facilities that remove barriers to better nutrition.

2. What is the purpose of NEAT?

The purpose of NEAT is to help community planners and concerned organizations collect information to support decisions about future directions. The assessment becomes a catalyst for an open discussion of how community development could be focused. NEAT assesses the environmental factors and policies at the community level that support healthy eating goals.

3. Who is eligible to apply?

Any city, township, charter township, or village in the State of Michigan may complete the NEAT. NEAT is best commpleted by a team of all interested community members. The assessment can help members:

• Create a community health coalition or committee to address health issues on an ongoing basis.
• Gather information about the community in relation to the nutrition environment.
• Engage community members and stakeholders in the project.
• Develop a strategic plan to address and monitor community assets and deficits.

4. When will the online NEAT will be available?

The online Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool is currently available on this website. If you are a Michigan community and wish to complete the NEAT, start by registering. To preview a copy of the NEAT (and print it if you like), please visit the Preview the NEAT section of this website.

5. Can our community complete the print (preview) copy of the NEAT instead of the online version?

Although the print version is useful for collecting information from various community sources and team members prior to data entry on the online form, the online version is the only official version for several reasons.

• The scoring for the NEAT occurs by section and and by sub-section of the NEAT to allow you to receive feedback on specific and general NEAT factors. The online program calculates section and subsection scores automatically each time you save your work and guarantees that your scores are accurate.

• The online NEAT performs a series of edit checks to ensure that your community has provided complete and consistent response to every question. This assures that you receive the maximum score possible and that the NEAT is complete and correct. No such checks occur on the paper version.

• Completing the online NEAT means that Michigan Healthy Communities Collaborative has a single centralized database of NEAT information that will best assist them in supporting your community and other Michigan communities in their efforts to create healthier communities.

6. How long will it take to complete the NEAT?

The data collection process for the NEAT is the most time consuming part of the process. It is recommended that a team approach be used, with each team members assigned specific questions/data collection tasks prior to the meeting. At the meeting, each of the NEAT items should be discussed to ensure that there is a consensus among team members regarding the responses. Depending on the amount of discussion at the meeting, the consensus process could take as little as 1 hour or as long as 2 to 4 hours. Accurate research and data collection prior to the meeting is very important.

Once the information has been collected and the team has reached consensus, it takes only 15 to 30 minutes to enter the data in the online NEAT.

7. Who should be involved in completing the NEAT?

The best way to complete the NEAT is through team effort. Examples of people or local organizations that would be helpful in completing the NEAT include: a knowledgeable contact in your community’s governing body; school district administration or school board; health department; parks and recreation department; wellness coordinators or human resource representatives for the larger employers in your community; local fast food and family style restaurant managers; grocery store managers; local media; community medical provider staff; local chapters of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Lung Association, American Diabetes Society.

8. What resources might be helpful in completing the self-assessment?

In addition to the community members and local organizations that may help complete the NEAT or provide information for one or more sections of the NEAT, the Resource Guide section of this website provides additional resources and information that may be helpful.

9. How do we start a NEAT assessment?

The first step is to register your community by completing a short online form. Registration takes a minute or two. The registration process ensures that only one NEAT is being completed for a given community at a given time. Registration allows you to access your NEAT and to enter data on your community.

During any online session, you can enter as little or as much data on the NEAT as you like. You can also edit and change information anytime you like (prior to final submission/finalization of your NEAT). By clicking the Save button (at the bottom of each NEAT page and after each sub-section), you save your data and can resume where you left off at the next session. When you return to the home page of the Promoting Healthy Eating website to continue your work, you will see a log in box. Log in with your email address (the one you provided upon registration) and the password you selected. You will immediately be taken to the Your NEAT Assessments & Scorecard page. You will be able to see where you left off previously.

After you have completed a NEAT assessment, you will be able to start a new NEAT at any time. To start a new NEAT assessment, simply log in to the application with your email address (the one you provided upon registration) and the password you selected. You will immediately be taken to Your NEAT Assessments & Scorecards page. Look for the link to start a new assessment at the top of the page.

10. Can more than one person work on the NEAT at the same time?

Yes, the system is designed so that more than one person from your community can work on the online NEAT at the same time. Each user from the community logs in with the same email address/password. However, there are risks to simultaneous data entry. If two (or more) individuals are working on the same section at the same time, one person (the person who enters and saves last) will overwrite the previously person’s work. This can cause confusion, errors, and extra work. Therefore, we strongly suggest that community data entry efforts be coordinated by a single individual and that workable procedures be established. For example, you might allow only one person to enter data on any given section. Other team members who want to suggest changes to a section other than their own should give them to the person responsible for that section. Similarly, while all team members may be involved in the final review, only one person might be designated to make the final changes and submit/finalize your NEAT.

11. Can we edit and change our answers that we’ve entered previously in the online NEAT?

Yes, you can edit and change answers both during a data entry session and/or at subsequent data entry sessions anytime prior to finalizing your NEAT. Once you have electronically finalized your NEAT, your answers are “frozen” and cannot be changed.

Be sure to save frequently (every five minutes, anytime you go from one section to the next, and at the conclusion of your data entry session) in order not to lose data.

12. Does the NEAT need to be completed in one sitting or can the work be spread out over several sessions?

The work can be spread out over as many sessions as you need. Be sure to save your work at the end of each session in order not to lose data.

13. What was the rationale for including the particular questions in the NEAT?

The questions were developed based on existing literature and pilot tested with various communities statewide. Each section represents one specific setting in which the community could make it easier for its citizens to eat more healthfully. The aim of the NEAT is to cover the critical points in each of the three venues (community at large, worksites, schools) to obtain an overall assessment of the nutrition environment of the community. The main sections are divided into subsections (each receiving a separate score) that can be translated into actionable areas for improvement.

14. How long has the NEAT been in use?

2005 is the first year that the online Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool has been available.

15. What is the deadline for completing the NEAT?

There is no specific deadline for completing the NEAT. The NEAT database is periodically refreshed to allow for annual clean up. This may affect the data entered by communities. When a clean up is scheduled, communities with a NEAT in progress will be notified via email and given instructions so that data entry on their form will not be lost.

16. What if we make a mistake and submit/finalize our NEAT before it is ready?

Please contact us directly via phone or email to let us know if you’ve submitted the NEAT in error. We will manually reactivate your NEAT so you can resume work.

Although, you can assess your community as often as you would like, we recommend no more than 2 years between assessments. As your NEAT team works on improving your community's nutrition environment, you will want to measure your progress and engage others in your community. Regular assessment helps keep your community focused on health and nutrition and allows you to gather others to help in your efforts.

18. How do we make updates to the information we provided at registration; for example, if we have a new primary email address or a contact phone number changes?

To change information you provided at registration, such as primary email address, primary contact, phone numbers changes, password, and the like, log into the website using your old information (old email address and password). Click on the Update Your Info menu item. Enter the new information and click the submit button.

If the information you wish to update is not on the Update Your Info form, please contact us.

19. Our community is very small. Is it worth completing the NEAT?

We believe that communities of all sizes benefit from the Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool. The NEAT was designed so that all questions apply to all communities regardless of size.

20. What happens after we submit/finalize our community’s NEAT?

When you finalize your NEAT, a series of automated edit checks will be performed to make sure you provided complete answers to all questions. Errors will be flagged so that you can easily find the questions that need to be corrected.

Immediately after successful electronic submission/finalization of your NEAT, you will get an on-screen confirmation. Shortly thereafter, you will receive an email (sent to the email address for the primary contact) reconfirming the finalization of your NEAT.

Completing your NEAT also gives you access to the NEAT Action Plan. The NEAT Action Plan helps you take the next step toward creating a healthier community environment. The NEAT Action Plan is an online tool that will assist you in the process by giving you automated tools to help you prioritize action steps that you might take to promote healthier eating in your community. The NEAT Action Plan tool also gives you a way to keep track of progress online. Only communities that complete and finalize the NEAT have access to their NEAT Action Plan.

21. Who do we contact if we have further questions?

Visit the contact us page to find out how to reach us by phone, email, fax or U.S. mail. Please don’t hesitate to contact us to get answers to your remaining questions. We appreciate your interest in the Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool!