Creating a replicable valid cross-platform buffering technique: The sausage network buffer for measuring food and physical activity built environments

摘要

BackgroundObesity researchers increasingly use geographic information systems to measure exposure and access in neighborhood food and physical activity environments. This paper proposes a network buffering approach, the “sausage” buffer. This method can be consistently and easily replicated across software versions and platforms, avoiding problems with proprietary systems that use different approaches in creating such buffers.