Introduction & Background

Environments shape people’s ability to access affordable, healthy foods, which in turn influences diet-related chronic diseases such as obesity. Communities with lower concentrations of healthy food options like grocery stores and higher concentrations of unhealthy food options like fast food restaurants experience higher rates of obesity and poorer dietary outcomes. (Pineda et al. (2024)). Lower income and minority communities tend to live in under-resources food environments, experiencing higher rates of food insecurity and diet-related chronic diseases in the U.S.These food environments are called food deserts and disproportionately affect these communities. (Walker, Williams, and Egede (2024)).

Measurement tools used to analyze food access such as the Retail Food Environment Index (RFEI) rely on simply looking at the count of healthy vs. unhealthy food outlets within an area (California Center for Public Health Advocacy (2007)). The RFEI looks at the combined count of the total number of supermarkets and produce vendors (numerator) to the fast-food restaurants and convenience stores (denominator).

These indices don’t count for transit access, mobility, or walkability required to each food outlets. This is important because proximity alone does not guarantee accessibility. Without proper pedestrian and transportation infrastructure, it could still be difficult to reach healthy food environments even if they exist in the area. Gaps in transit options and safe walking conditions can keep low-income residents from accessing healthy options (Atherton, Schweninger, and Edmunds (2021))

For that reason, this project examines how food access varies across communities in the Atlanta metro area, highlighting the relationships between food outlet distribution, walkability/transit barriers, and health inequities. We hypothesize that mobility measures better capture the quality of the food environment rather than just the count of food outlets like the RFEI outlet suggests and incorporate this along with socioeconomic variables into our analysis.

Research Questions

How does RFEI and accessibility to retail food environments look like?

Does retail food environment impact obesity prevalence?

How does accessibility to retail food environments affect obesity prevalence?

Socioeconomic Analysis using ACS Data By Block Group

This map shoes median household income within Atlanta. Using FOX 5 Digital Team (2023), the income buckets were determined because the middle income range in Atlanta is considered to range from $49,652 to $148,214.

Atherton, Emily, Erica Schweninger, and Melissa Edmunds. 2021. “Transportation: A Community Driver of Health.” American Public Health Association, AcademyHealth, Kaiser Permanente. https://www.apha.org.
California Center for Public Health Advocacy. 2007. “Searching for Healthy Food: The Food Landscape in California Cities and Counties.” Davis, CA: California Center for Public Health Advocacy.
FOX 5 Digital Team. 2023. “This Is How Much It Takes to Be ’Middle Class’ in Georgia.” FOX 5 Atlanta. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-middle-class-economic-survey.
Pineda, E., D. J. Jimenez, S. Friel, and J. A. Rivera. 2024. “Food Environment and Obesity: A Systematic Review.” Public Health Nutrition 27 (1): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980023002403.
Walker, Rebekah J., Joni S. Williams, and Leonard E. Egede. 2024. “Food Insecurity, Neighborhood Food Environment, and Health Disparities.” Nutrients 16 (2): 217. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16020217.