Abstract
BackgroundAlthough neighborhood-level access to food differs by sociodemographic factors, a majority of research on neighborhoods and food access has used a single construct of neighborhood context, such as income or race. Therefore, the many interrelated built environment and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods obscure relationships between neighborhood factors and food access.MethodsThe objective of this study was to account for the many interrelated characteristics of food-related neighborhood environments and examine the association between neighborhood type and relative availability of sit-down restaurants and supermarkets. Using cluster analyses with multiple measures of neighborhood characteristics (e.g., population density, mix of land use, and sociodemographic factors) we identified six neighborhood types in 1993 in the Twin Cities Region, Minnesota. We then used mixed effects regression models to estimate differences in the relative availability of sit-down restaurants and supermarkets in 1993, 2001, and 2011 across the six neighborhood types.ResultsWe defined six types of neighborhoods that existed in 1993, namely, urban core, inner city, urban, aging suburb, high-income suburb, and suburban edge. Between 1993 and 2011, inner city neighborhoods experienced a greater increase in the percent of sit-down restaurants compared with urban core, urban, and aging suburbs. Differences in the percent of sit-down restaurants between inner city and aging suburbs, high-income suburbs and suburban edge neighborhoods increased between 1993 and 2011. Similarly, aging suburb neighborhoods had a greater percent of supermarkets compared with urban and high-income suburb neighborhoods in 2001 and 2011, but not in 1993, suggesting a more varied distribution of food stores across neighborhoods over time. Thus, the classification of neighborhood type based on sociodemographic and built environment characteristics resulted in a complex and increasingly varied distribution of restaurants and food stores.ConclusionsThe temporal increase in the relative availability of sit-down restaurants in inner cities after accounting for all restaurants might be partly related to a higher proportion of residents who eat-away-from-home, which is associated with higher calorie and fat intake.
Highlights
Previous studies on access to healthy food have generally characterized neighborhoods by sociodemographic attributes of neighborhood context [1, 2], such asPeng et al Int J Health Geogr (2021) 20:15 income or race
The temporal increase in the relative availability of sit-down restaurants in inner cities after account‐ ing for all restaurants might be partly related to a higher proportion of residents who eat-away-from-home, which is associated with higher calorie and fat intake
Using the baseline-change method of analysis, we examined the distribution of types of restaurants and food stores within each type of neighborhood to determine whether a particular neighborhood type had relatively greater access to a specific type of restaurant or food store compared with other neighborhood types over three observational years
Summary
Previous studies on access to healthy food have generally characterized neighborhoods by sociodemographic attributes of neighborhood context [1, 2], such asPeng et al Int J Health Geogr (2021) 20:15 income or race. Previous studies on access to healthy food have generally characterized neighborhoods by sociodemographic attributes of neighborhood context [1, 2], such as. In accord with the definition of Caspi et al [8], we refer to availability as the presence of certain types of restaurants or food stores in the neighborhood. A few recent studies [9, 12] in Spain and western Australia (Perth) have combined built environment with sociodemographic factors to characterize neighborhoods. Such studies classified the neighborhoods by, for example, predefined level of development stage first and sub-classified newly-developed neighborhood by income level (high, medium, low). The many interrelated built environment and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods obscure relationships between neighborhood factors and food access
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