Association of individual and neighborhood factors with home food availability: Evidence from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

Abstract

ObjectiveTo examine the association of the availability of home healthy and unhealthy foods and drinks (fruits, dark green vegetables, soft drink, salty snack and fat‐free/low‐fat milk) with individual and neighborhood factors using a nationally representative sample from 2001–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).MethodsData from the 2001–2006 waves of the continuous NHANES was merged with the 2000 census and other neighborhood data sources constructed using geographic information system (GIS). Associations of individual and neighborhood factors and home food availabilities were assessed using multilevel random‐intercept logistic regression models taking study design, weights, and covariates into account.ResultsThe analysis included 4353 adult participants aged 19–65 years who had home food availability data. Both family income‐to‐needs ratio and neighborhood tract socioeconomic status (SES) scores were positively associated with home fruit, dark green vegetable and fat‐free/low‐fat milk availabilities (Ps<0.05). Participants having a college degree or above were more likely to have home fruits (P=0.0007) and fat‐free/low‐fat milk (P<0.0001) available and less likely to have home salty snack (P=0.017) and soft drinks (P<0.0001) available relative to those without a college degree. Soft drink availability was not associated with family income‐to‐needs ratio and neighborhood tract SES scores. BMI was positively associated with fat‐free/low‐fat milk availability in the home (P=0.005) but was not associated with the availabilities of other examined foods or drinks.ConclusionsThe availabilities of home healthy and unhealthy foods and drinks are mainly associated with SES at individual and neighborhood level.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant R01CA140319– 01A1