Finding Food Deserts

Abstract

Public health research has increasingly focused on how access to resources affects health behaviors. Mapping environmental factors, such as distance to a supermarket, can identify intervention points toward improving food access in low-income and minority communities. However, the existing literature provides little guidance on choosing the most appropriate measures of spatial access. This study compared the results of different measures of spatial access to large food stores and the locations of high and low access identified by each. The data set included U.S. Census population data and the locations of large food stores in the six-county area around Chicago, Illinois. Six measures of spatial access were calculated at the census block group level and the results compared. The analysis found that there was little agreement in the identified locations of high or low access between measures. This study illustrates the importance of considering the access measure used when conducting research, interpreting results, or comparing studies. Future research should explore the correlation of different measures with health behaviors and health outcomes.

Keywords

supermarket accessibility food desert food environment supermarket access

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

AC Nielsen. (2004, April). Mass, supercenters and club have much stronger “distance” draw. Retrieved from www.factsfiguresfuture.com/archive/April_2004.htm

Aggarwal

Cook

A. J.

Jiao

Seguin

R. A.

Vernez Moudon

Hurvitz

P. M.

Drewnowski

(2014). Access to supermarkets and fruit and vegetable consumption. American Journal of Public Health, 104, 917-923. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301763

Apparicio

Cloutier

M.-S.

Shearmur

(2007). The case of Montreal’s missing food deserts: Evaluation of accessibility to food supermarkets. International Journal of Health Geographics, 6(1), 4.

Block

Chavez

Birgen

(2008). Finding food in Chicago and the suburbs. Chicago, IL: Chicago State University.

Block

Kouba

(2006). A comparison of the availability and affordability of a market basket in two communities in the Chicago area. Public Health Nutrition, 9, 837-845.

Brown

(1992). The wheel of retail gravitation? Environment and Planning A, 24, 1409-1429.

Caspi

C. E.

Sorensen

Subramanian

S. V.

Kawachi

(2012). The local food environment and diet: A systematic review. Health & Place, 18, 1172-1187. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.05.006

Crawford

T. W.

Jilcott Pitts

S. B.

McGuirt

J. T.

Keyserling

T. C.

Ammerman

A. S.

(2014). Conceptualizing and comparing neighborhood and activity space measures for food environment research. Health & Place, 30, 215-225. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2014.09.007

Diez Roux

A.V.

(2004). The study of group-level factors in epidemiology: Rethinking variables, study designs and analytical approaches. Epidemiology Reviews, 26, 104-111.

10.

Dubowitz

Zenk

S. N.

Ghosh-Dastidar

Cohen

D. A.

Beckman

Hunter

Collins

R. L.

(2015). Healthy food access for urban food desert residents: Examination of the food environment, food purchasing practices, diet and BMI. Public Health Nutrition, 18, 2220-2230. doi:10.1017/S1368980014002742

11.

Fleischhacker

S. E.

Flournoy

Moore

L. V.

(2013). Meaningful, measurable, and manageable approaches to evaluating healthy food financing initiatives: An overview of resources and approaches. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 19, 541-549.

12.

Fotheringham

A. S.

Brunsdon

Charlton

(2000). Quantitative geography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

13.

Gordon-Larsen

(2014). Food availability/convenience and obesity. Advances in Nutrition, 5, 809-817. doi:10.3945/an.114.007070

14.

Guagliardo

M. F.

(2004). Spatial accessibility of primary care: Concepts, methods and challenges. International Journal of Health Geographics, 3(1), 3.

15.

Hamrick

K. S.

Hopkins

(2012). The time cost of access to food: Distance to the grocery store as measured in minutes. International Journal of Time Use Research, 9(1), 28-58.

16.

Handy

S. L.

Clifton

K. J.

(2001a). Evaluating neighborhood accessibility: Possibilities and practicalities. Journal of Transportation and Statistics, 4(2/3), 67-78.

17.

Handy

S. L.

Clifton

K. J.

(2001b). Local shopping as a strategy for reducing automobile travel. Transportation, 28, 317-346.

18.

Jetter

K. M.

Cassady

D. L.

(2006). The availability and cost of healthier food alternatives. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 30(1), 38-44.

19.

Kerr

Frank

Sallis

J. F.

Saelens

Glanz

Chapman

(2012). Predictors of trips to food destinations. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 9, 58. doi:10.1186/1479-5868-9-58

20.

Larsen

Gilliland

(2008). Mapping the evolution of “food deserts” in a Canadian city: Supermarket accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961-2005. International Journal of Health Geographics, 7, 16. doi:10.1186/1476-072X-7-16

21.

Larson

N. I.

Story

M. T.

Nelson

M. C.

(2009). Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy foods in the U.S. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36, 74-81. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2008.09.025

22.

Lucan

S. C.

(2015). Concerning limitations of food-environment research: A narrative review and commentary framed around obesity and diet-related diseases in youth. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115, 205-212. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2014.08.019

23.

Lucan

S. C.

Maroko

A. R.

Bumol

Torrens

Varona

Berke

E. M.

(2013). Business list vs. ground observation for measuring a food environment: Saving time or waste of time (or worse)? Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113, 1332-1339. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2013.05.011

24.

Mabli

(2014). SNAP participation, food security, and geographic access to food. Retrieved from http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SNAPFS_FoodAccess.pdf

25.

Macintyre

Maciver

Sooman

(1993). Area, class and health: Should we be focusing on places or people. Journal of Social Policy, 22, 213-234.

26.

Martinez

S. W.

(2007). The U.S. food marketing system: Recent developments, 1997-2006. Retrieved from http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/196925/err42_1_.pdf

27.

McKinnon

R. A.

Reedy

Morrissette

M. A.

Lytle

L. A.

Yaroch

A. L.

(2009). Measures of the food environment: A compilation of the literature, 1990-2007. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36(4 Suppl.), S124-S133. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2009.01.012

28.

Mitchell

(2005). The ESRI guide to GIS analysis: Vol. 2. Spatial measurements & statistics. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.

29.

Moore

L. V.

Diez Roux

A. V.

Franco

(2012). Measuring availability of healthy foods: Agreement between directly measured and self-reported data. American Journal of Epidemiology, 175, 1037-1044.

30.

Morgan

G. A.

Griego

O. V.

Gloeckner

(2001). An introduction to use and interpretation in research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

31.

Smoyer-Tomic

K. E.

Spence

J. C.

Amrhein

(2006). Food deserts in the prairies? Supermarket accessibility and neighborhood need in Edmonton, Canada. The Professional Geographer, 58, 307-325.

32.

Sparks

A. L.

Bania

Leete

(2011). Comparative approaches to measuring food access in urban areas: The case of Portland, Oregon. Urban Studies, 48, 1715-1737.

33.

Talen

(2003). Neighborhoods as service providers: A methodology for evaluating pedestrian access. Environment and Planning B, 30, 181-200.

34.

Talen

Anselin

(1998). Assessing spatial equity: An evaluation of measures of accessibility to public playgrounds. Environment and Planning A, 30, 595-613.

35.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Census tracts and block numbering areas. Retrieved from http://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch10GARM.pdf

36.

Walker

R. E.

Keane

C. R.

Burke

J. G.

(2010). Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. Health & Place, 16, 876-884. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2010.04.013

37.

Yim

(1990). Travel distance and market size in food retailing (No. UCTC 124). Berkeley, CA: University of California Trans-portation Center.