-
Introduction
Decomposition of food deserts and healthy nutrition in Fulton County
Ben Pincus, Joseph A. Gonzales, Florian FoersterAccess to healthy food in the neighborhood is believed to be an important factor for a healthy lifestyle. Numerous studies have investigated possible influences of poor retail food environments on health and obesity. However, the topic is still controversially discussed and proximity to grocery stores appears to remain only one in many factors influencing a healthy diet.
Our visualization invites others to interactively explore the concept of food deserts, the components of food deserts, and the impact of each on Fulton County. Focusing on two Fulton county cities, the visualization continues to look into other factors that could influence healthy lifestyle and obesity rates. Ultimately, we ask which data other might be needed to understand nutrition behavior in Fulton county.
Food desert: a low-income area where at least one third of people live more than a mile from a grocery store.
Distance to Grocery Store Bigger than a Mile
Poverty Rate of 20% or Higher (?) Or a median family income of less than 80% of other family income.
Low Vehicle Access
Food Desert Area
What we learned: The definition of food desert is more complex than initially thought. It is influenced by the different indicators and how each of the indicators is set. For example: distance to the next grocery story can be set 0.5 miles, 1 mile or an even bigger distance.
Data sources:
- USDA Food Access Research Atlas
- US Census Bureau
- Center for Disease Control & Prevention
- Fulton County Geographic Information System
- Oasis mapping tool
Literature on the topic:
- Chatterji (2013). Association between food deserts and diabetes related morbidity and mortality among residents of fulton county, Georgia
- Cossman (2003). Mapping high or low mortality places across time in the United States: a research note on a health visualization and analysis project
- Dawood (2012). Fulton County Health Corner Store Project
- Douangchai (2011). Capturing Atlanta’s Food Environment: A Community Level Assessment of Three Disparate Areas
- Pearson (2005). Do ‘food deserts’ influence fruit and vegetable consumption? - a cross-sectional study
- Rieber (1995). A Historical Review of Visualization in Human Congnition
- Story (2008). Creating Healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches
- Walker (2010). Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature
- Wiedner (2011). Dynamic Urban Food Environments: A temporal analysis of access to healthy foods
The biggest challenge we encountered was that data is not available in consistent geographic units: census tracts, zipcode, commission districts, NPUs, making it hard to compare various sources of data.
Explore what areas are considered food deserts in Fulton county, based on three criterias listed by the United States Department of Agriculture as constituents of a food desert.
College Park (?) Food Desert
Sandy Springs (?) Not a Food Desert
Food Desert Area
By the numbers...
Source: city-data.com
College Park (a Food Desert)
Population: 14,649 (?) (From 2012)
Male: 47.3% | Female: 52.7% (?) (From 2012)
Demographics: (?) (From 2010 Census)- African American 81.8%
- White 12.4%
- Hispanic 6.86%
- Other 3.3%
- Mixed Race 1.7%
- Asian 0.6%
- Native American 0.2%
Median Household Income: $29,640 (GA:$46,007) (?) (From 2011)
Unemployment: 15.5%
Sandy Springs (Not a Food Desert)
Population: 99,419 (?) (From 2012)
Male: 48.2% | Female: 51.8% (?) (From 2012)
Demographics: (?) (From 2010 Census)- White 65.0%
- African American 20.0%
- Hispanic 14.2%
- Other 6.9%
- Asian 5.0%
- Mixed Race 2.7%
- Native American 0.3%
Medium Household Income: $58,031 (GA:$46,007) (?) (From 2011)
Unemployment: 2.9%
Studies suggest that the availability of fast food restaurant is related to a healthy diet.
Let’s see how the two cities compare.
Fulton County
College Park
Sandy Springs
Fast Food
Farmer's Markets
Middle SchoolHigh School Obesity Statistics
20 - 30%
30 - 40%
40 - 50%
50 - 60%
60 - 62%
23 - 29%
29 - 35%
35 - 45%
45 - 50%
50 - 56%
3.2% difference in obesity between Sandy Springs and College Park middle schools.
Obesity decreases in the transition to highschool. (Amount of decrease below)
College park - 7.76%
North springs - 6.48%
South Springs - 18.38%Moving Forward
Maybe something is more impactful than food deserts?
Education about health? Culture? Behavioral issues?
We tried to find other data for visualization to better compare the two cities but not a lot of data exists.
Here some things we’d be interested to know:
- Sugar intake in children through soda
- Availability of fresh produce in grocery stores
- How vegetables are presented in stores
- How many recipes with vegetables are people using
You want to dive deeper into the topic?
Great, here is a few recommendations a question the we asked ourselves reading:
Atlanta Magazine Article on Food deserts in Atlanta
How does the author mix access to food with general affordability of fresh produce?http://www.atlantamagazine.com/features/2014/03/03/stranded-in-atlantas-food-deserts
United States Department of Agriculture’s Rood Access Research Atlas: Explore food deserts in the US, what do you notice about rural areas?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx
New York city’s FRESH Program to bring new grocery stores offering healthy food to underserved neighborhoods:
Through which measures does a public agency try to improve accessibility to grocery storeshttp://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/2009/fresh.shtml
East Los Angeles initiative to increase availability and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables
What other issues are addressed through community work?