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

BACKGROUND: Very few validated instruments, particularly screening tools applicable to large-cohort studies, are available to assess the behavior of local food procurement. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to develop and validate a short questionnaire that measures local food procurement in a sample of French-speaking adults from Quebec, 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 (Locavore-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 the Quebec City metropolitan community. RESULTS: The Locavore-I-SF comprises 12 questions that measure the frequency of short food supply chain use (self-production, farmers’ markets, and community-supported agriculture box scheme) for 3 locally produced foods (carrot, tomato, and lettuce) as well as the geographical origin of those 3 foods. The Locavore-I-SF, which is scored on a 12-point scale, had a high internal consistency (Cronbach ɑ: 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 labels 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 (B = 0.05 ± 0.02; P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The Locavore-I-SF, a short questionnaire based on 3 locally produced foods in Quebec, measures the behavior of local food procurement with good reliability and acceptable validity metrics.