The food retail environment and area deprivation in Glasgow City, UK

Laura Macdonald,Sally Macintyre,Anne Ellaway

doi:10.1186/1479-5868-6-52

Abstract

It has previously been suggested that deprived neighbourhoods within modern cities have poor access to general amenities, for example, fewer food retail outlets. Here we examine the distribution of food retailers by deprivation in the City of Glasgow, UK.We obtained a list of 934 food retailers in Glasgow, UK, in 2007, and mapped these at address level. We categorised small areas (data zones) into quintiles of area deprivation using the 2006 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation Income sub-domain score. We computed mean number of retailers per 1000 residents per data zone, and mean network distance to nearest outlet from data zone centroid, for all retailers combined and for each of seven categories of retailer separately (i.e. bakers, butchers, fruit and vegetable sellers, fishmongers, convenience stores, supermarkets and delicatessens).The most deprived quintile (of areas) had the greatest mean number of total food retailers per 1000 residents while quintile 1 (least deprived) had the least, and this difference was statistically significant (Chi-square p < 0.01). The closest mean distance to the nearest food retailer was within quintile 3 while the furthest distance was within quintile 1, and this was also statistically significant (Chi-square p < 0.01). There was variation in the distribution of the seven different types of food retailers, and access to amenities depended upon the type of food retailer studied and whether proximity or density was measured. Overall the findings suggested that deprived neighbourhoods within the City of Glasgow did not necessarily have fewer food retail outlets.

Highlights

The prevalence of obesity is increasing in industrialised countries
Given the diversity in findings between various studies, and the need to update previous work with exploration of Glasgow's current food retail environment, we aim to examine the location of food retailers, by small area deprivation, and establish whether a pattern by deprivation for food retail outlets exists
We found that in terms of density of all food retail outlets/ distance to the nearest food retail outlet, the least deprived quintile was the least well served, while the most deprived quintile had the greatest density, and quintile 3 the closest mean distance

Summary

Introduction

The prevalence of obesity is increasing in industrialised countries. Almost a quarter of adults in the UK are classified as obese [1] with higher rates among low income groups ( women) [2]. 'Understanding, measuring, and altering the "obesogenic" environment is critical to success' [4] Obesogenic environments are those which promote excessive food intake and discourage physical activity. A growing number of studies explore the potential contribution of the local food retail environment [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. The findings of these studies varied depending on the type of resource(s) measured and the Country, State or City in which the study was based. Studies, based in regions of the US, found a smaller number of supermarkets [6,12,13] and grocery stores [7],

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