Neighborhood deprivation, vehicle ownership, and potential spatial access to a variety of fruits and vegetables in a large rural area in Texas
Open Access
- 1 January 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in International Journal of Health Geographics
- Vol. 9 (1), 26
- https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072x-9-26
Abstract
There has been limited study of all types of food stores, such as traditional (supercenters, supermarkets, and grocery stores), convenience stores, and non-traditional (dollar stores, mass merchandisers, and pharmacies) as potential opportunities for purchase of fresh and processed (canned and frozen) fruits and vegetables, especially in small-town or rural areas. Data from the Brazos Valley Food Environment Project (BVFEP) are combined with 2000 U.S. Census data for 101 Census block groups (CBG) to examine neighborhood access to fruits and vegetables. BVFEP data included identification and geocoding of all food stores (n = 185) in six rural counties in Texas, using ground-truthed methods and on-site assessment of the availability and variety of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables in all food stores. Access from the population-weighted centroid of each CBG was measured using proximity (minimum network distance) and coverage (number of shopping opportunities) for a good selection of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. Neighborhood inequalities (deprivation and vehicle ownership) and spatial access for fruits and vegetables were examined using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test and multivariate regression models. The variety of fruits or vegetables was greater at supermarkets compared with grocery stores. Among non-traditional and convenience food stores, the largest variety was found at dollar stores. On average, rural neighborhoods were 9.9 miles to the nearest supermarket, 6.7 miles and 7.4 miles to the nearest food store with a good variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, respectively, and 4.7 miles and 4.5 miles to a good variety of fresh and processed fruits or vegetables. High deprivation or low vehicle ownership neighborhoods had better spatial access to a good variety of fruits and vegetables, both in the distance to the nearest source and in the number of shopping opportunities. Supermarkets and grocery stores are no longer the only shopping opportunities for fruits or vegetables. The inclusion of data on availability of fresh or processed fruits or vegetables in the measurements provides robust meaning to the concept of potential access in this large rural area.Keywords
This publication has 72 references indexed in Scilit:
- Rural and Urban Differences in the Associations between Characteristics of the Community Food Environment and Fruit and Vegetable IntakeJournal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2011
- More Efforts Needed to Better Understand Rural Public HealthJournal of Public Health Management and Practice, 2009
- Diet-Related Disparities: Understanding the Problem and Accelerating SolutionsJournal of the American Dietetic Association, 2009
- Association between neighborhood need and spatial access to food stores and fast food restaurants in neighborhoods of ColoniasInternational Journal of Health Geographics, 2009
- The food retail environment and area deprivation in Glasgow City, UKInternational Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2009
- Comparing alternative approaches to measuring the geographical accessibility of urban health services: Distance types and aggregation-error issuesInternational Journal of Health Geographics, 2008
- Mapping the evolution of 'food deserts' in a Canadian city: Supermarket accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005International Journal of Health Geographics, 2008
- Deprivation amplification revisited; or, is it always true that poorer places have poorer access to resources for healthy diets and physical activity?International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2007
- Effect of Cross-Level Interaction Between Individual and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status on Adult Mortality RatesAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2006
- An Ecological Perspective on Health Promotion ProgramsHealth Education Quarterly, 1988