Food and eating environments likely contribute to the increasing epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases, over and above individual factors such as knowledge, skills, and motivation. Environmental and policy interventions may be among the most effective strategies for creating population-wide improvements in eating. This review describes an ecological framework for conceptualizing the many food environments and conditions that influence food choices, with an emphasis on current knowledge regarding the home, child care, school, work site, retail store, and restaurant settings. Important issues of disparities in food access for low-income and minority groups and macrolevel issues are also reviewed. The status of measurement and evaluation of nutrition environments and the need for action to improve health are highlighted.

Increasing evidence suggests that public health and health-promotion interventions that are based on social and behavioral science theories are more effective than those lacking a theoretical base. This article provides an overview of the state of the science of theory use for designing and conducting health-promotion interventions. Influential contemporary perspectives stress the multiple determinants and multiple levels of determinants of health and health behavior. We describe key types of theory and selected often-used theories and their key concepts, including the health belief model, the transtheoretical model, social cognitive theory, and the ecological model. This summary is followed by a review of the evidence about patterns and effects of theory use in health behavior intervention research. Examples of applied theories in three large public health programs illustrate the feasibility, utility, and challenges of using theory-based interventions. This review concludes by identifying cross-cutting themes and important future directions for bridging the divides between theory, practice, and research.

The authors provide a conceptual model of a healthy nutrition environment, then review the types of measures required to assess various aspects of this environment. Measures fall into priority categories of consumer and community environments.

Theory-based health behavior change programs are thought to be more effective than those that do not use theory. No previous reviews have assessed the extent to which theory is used (that is, operationalized and tested) in empirical research. The purpose of this study was to describe theory use in recent health behavior literature and to assess the proportion of research that uses theory along a continuum from: informed by theory to applying, testing, or building theory. A sample of empirical research articles (n = 193) published in ten leading public health, medicine, and psychology journals from 2000 to 2005 was coded to determine whether and how theory was used. Of health behavior articles in the sample, 35.7% mentioned theory. The most-often-used theories were The Transtheoretical Model, Social Cognitive Theory, and Health Belief Model. Most theory use (68.1%) involved research that was informed by theory; 18% applied theory; 3.6% tested theory; and 9.4% sought to build theory. About one third of published health behavior research uses theory and a small proportion of those studies rigorously apply theory. Patterns of theory use are similar to reports from the mid-1990s. Behavioral researchers should strive to use theory more thoroughly by applying, testing, and building theories in order to move the field forward.

Skin cancer, the most common cancer in the United States,¹ is diagnosed in about 1 million Americans each year.² The incidence of skin cancer has increased dramatically worldwide in the last decade,^1,2 establishing the 3 main types of skin cancer—malignant melanoma, squamous cell cancer, and basal cell cancer—as significant public health concerns.^1,3 Squamous cell cancer risk increases with high levels of cumulative sun exposure, and malignant melanoma and basal cell cancer risk factors include a history of severe sunburn and intense intermittent exposure to the sun at an early age.⁴