Identifying Food Deserts and People with Low Food Access, and Disparities in Dietary Habits and Health in Korea

Sanghyo Kim,Kyei-Im Lee,Seong-Yoon Heo,Seung-Chul Noh

doi:10.3390/ijerph17217936

Abstract

This study aims to identify the regions and people with low food access (LFA) for Korea at the national level and to examine disparities in food consumption, dietary behavior, and health outcome for those regions and people. Based on the distance to the nearest grocery store from residence, the regions and people with LFA are identified through geographical information system (GIS) analysis. To examine disparities between the regions and people with LFA and without LFA, a consumer survey is conducted and data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Community Health Survey are analyzed. This study found that there exists a serious access to food issue in Korea, especially for the aged. Moreover, there also exist significant disparities between the regions and people with and without LFA in the distance and one-way travel time to the grocery store that is mainly visited, frequency of offline/online grocery shopping, availability of various foods, dietary habits such as eating regularly, eating nutritionally balanced foods, and eating sufficient fruit/vegetable/whole grains, the acquisition and utilization of food-related information, and health outcomes. This study suggests that, to resolve such a serious food access problem, assistance policies, such as mobile grocery stores and lunch-box delivery, need to be activated in countries similar to Korea since this problem could potentially deteriorate the national medical finances as well as the regional and individual disparities.

Highlights

Household food security is strongly associated with food supply and demand
This study aims to identify the regions and people with low food access (LFA) for Korea at the national level, and examine disparities to identify the regions and people with LFA for Korea at the national level, and examine disparities in food consumption, dietary behavior and health outcome observed for those regions and people
The average distance significantly varies by the lower-level administrative district, implying a potential existence of regional disparities both in food access and in food consumption and dietary life

Summary

Introduction

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN), “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food reference for an active and healthy life” [1]. Household income level has been identified as the most critical factor in determining household food security, policy makers and researchers have recently shown more interest in the physical environment surrounding food consumption as a significant external determinant of food security of households. As this external factor is uncontrollable by household themselves, it is increasingly attracting the attention of policy makers.

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