Comparing competing geospatial measures to capture the relationship between the neighborhood food environment and diet

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Ann Epidemiol
• Personal Author:
  Rummo, Pasquale E. ; Algur, Yasemin ; McAlexander, Tara ; Judd, Suzanne E. ; Lopez, Priscilla M. ; Adhikari, Samrachana ; Brown, Janene ; Meeker, Melissa ; McClure, Leslie A. ; Elbel, Brian
• Description:
  Purpose:
  
  To examine how the choice of neighborhood food environment definition impacts the association with diet.
  
  Methods:
  
  Using food frequency questionnaire data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study at baseline (2003–2007), we calculated participants’ dietary inflammation score (DIS) (n=20,331); higher scores indicate greater pro-inflammatory exposure. We characterized availability of supermarkets and fast food restaurants using several geospatial measures, including density (i.e., counts/km2) and relative measures (i.e., percentage of all food stores or restaurants); and various buffer distances, including administrative units (census tract) and empirically-derived buffers (“classic” network, “sausage” network) tailored to community type (higher-density urban, lower-density urban, suburban/small town, rural). Using generalized estimating equations, we estimated the association between each geospatial measure and DIS, controlling for individual- and neighborhood-level sociodemographics.
  
  Results:
  
  The choice of buffer-based measure did not change the direction or magnitude of associations with DIS. Effect estimates derived from administrative units were smaller than those derived from tailored empirically-derived buffer measures. Substantively, a 10% increase in the percentage of fast food restaurants using a “classic” network buffer was associated with a 6.3 (SE=1.17) point higher DIS (p<0.001). The relationship between the percentage of supermarkets and DIS, however, was null. We observed high correlation coefficients between buffer-based density measures of supermarkets and fast food restaurants (r=0.73–0.83), which made it difficult to estimate independent associations by food outlet type.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  Researchers should tailor buffer-based measures to community type in future studies, and carefully consider the theoretical and statistical implications for choosing relative (vs. absolute) measures.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Diet Fast Foods Food Supply Humans Residence Characteristics Restaurants
• Keywords:
  Inflammation
• Source:
  Ann Epidemiol. 61:1-7
• Pubmed ID:
  34051343
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8592302
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U01 DP006299/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U01DP006302/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; U01 DP006293/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U01 DP006296/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U01DP006296/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; U01DP006293/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; P30 DK111022/DK/NIDDK NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 AG049970/AG/NIA NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 NS092706/NS/NINDS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01DP006299/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; U01 NS041588/NS/NINDS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01 DP006302/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  61
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:877f0bcf0c036d52f37a9440d6dbbcf358954c36a5f38f0888c780b751b4d00bad4f0edb365b4370b941c3e8f257b9f37e0ef8dcb38c185e7754e6986c3e774b
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/111721/cdc_111721_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 348.72 KB ]