OBJECTIVE To explore potential differences in food shopping behaviors and healthy food availability perceptions between residents living in areas with low and high food access. DESIGN A cross-sectional telephone survey to assess food shopping behaviors and perceptions. Data from an 8-county food environment field census used to define the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) healt...

OBJECTIVE Household food access remains a concern among primarily agricultural households in lower- and middle-income countries. We examined the associations among domains representing livelihood assets (human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital) and household food access. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey (two questionnaires) on livelihood assets. S...

BACKGROUND Food access is important for maintaining dietary variety, which predicts underweight. The aim of this study was to examine the association of food access and neighbor relationships with eating and underweight. METHODS We analyzed cross-sectional data from 102,869 Japanese individuals aged 65 years or older. The perceived availability of food was assessed using the presence or absen...

INTRODUCTION Living in a rural food desert has been linked to poor dietary habits. Understanding community perspectives about available resources and feasible solutions may inform strategies to improve food access in rural food deserts. The objective of our study was to identify resources and solutions to the food access problems of women in rural, southernmost Illinois. METHODS Fourteen focu...

Assessments of access to healthful food frequently use GIS to measure the distance and concentration of food outlets relative to where residents live. These descriptive approaches do not account for food shopping behavior, which may vary based on the attributes of food shoppers and their activity space—places where they live, work, access resources, and socialize. Building on transportation res...

Differential locational access to fast-food retailing between neighbourhoods of varying socioeconomic status has been suggested as a contextual explanation for the social distribution of diet-related mortality and morbidity. This New Zealand study examines whether neighbourhood access to fast-food outlets is associated with individual diet-related health outcomes. Travel distances to the closes...

Increasingly, studies are focusing on the role the local food environment plays in residents' ability to purchase affordable, healthy and nutritious foods. In a food desert, an area devoid of a supermarket, access to healthy food is limited. We conducted a systematic review of studies that focused on food access and food desert research in the United States. The 31 studies identified utilized 9...

Executive Summary Adequate access to healthy food has become a more pressing societal issue due to factors such as the recent recession and continued challenges with un-and under-employment depressing income in many areas. More than 14% of American households (17.5 million) were estimated to be food insecure during 2013 in the latest Economic Research Report by U.S. Department of Agriculture (U...