The Delta Food Outlets Study was an observational study designed to assess the nutritional environments of 5 towns located in the Lower Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi. It was an ancillary study to the Delta Healthy Sprouts Project and therefore included towns in which Delta Healthy Sprouts participants resided and that contained at least one convenience (corner) store, grocery store, or gas station. Data were collected via electronic surveys between March 2016 and September 2018 using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey (NEMS) tools. Survey scores for the NEMS Corner Store, NEMS Grocery Store, and NEMS Restaurant were computed using modified scoring algorithms provided for these tools via SAS software programming. Because the towns were not randomly selected and the sample sizes are relatively small, the data may not be generalizable to all rural towns in the Lower Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi. Dataset one (NEMS-C) contains data collected with the NEMS Corner (convenience) Store tool. Dataset two (NEMS-G) contains data collected with the NEMS Grocery Store tool. Dataset three (NEMS-R) contains data collected with the NEMS Restaurant tool.

Food environment factors--such as store/restaurant proximity, food prices, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics--interact to influence food choices and diet quality. Research is beginning to document the complexity of these interactions, but more is needed to identify causal relationships and effective policy interventions. The objectives of the Atlas are to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality, and to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so.