Assessing Retail Fruit and Vegetable Availability in Urban and Rural Underserved Communities

Details

• Journal Article:
  Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD)
• Personal Author:
  Hosler, Akiko S ; Rajulu, Deepa T ; Ronsani, Adrienne E ; Fredrick, Bonnie L
• Description:
  Introduction ; Fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) are important parts of a healthy, balanced diet. Consumption of F&Vs is low among residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. We investigated and compared retail F&V availability in urban and rural underserved communities in New York State. ; Methods ; All food retail stores and farmers' markets (N = 263) in downtown Albany and in Columbia and Greene counties in New York State were visited and surveyed. Food stores were classified as F&V stores if they stocked more than the minimum varieties of fresh F&Vs defined by this study and as fruit-for-snack stores if they had ready-to-eat fruits only. Store density per 10,000 residents was calculated as a standardized measure of F&V availability. Adjustment weights were created to incorporate store size and business hours into the analysis. ; Results ; The weight-adjusted density (per 10,000 residents) of F&V stores was 4.6 in Albany's minority neighborhood (reference category), 11.4 in Albany's racially mixed neighborhood (P = .01), 7.8 in Columbia and Greene counties' rural community (P = .10), and 9.8 in Columbia and Greene counties' small-town community (P = .02). Significant differences were not found in fruit-for-snack stores, which ranged from 2.0 per 10,000 in the mixed neighborhood to 3.4 per 10,000 in the rural community. ; Conclusion ; The urban minority neighborhood had the most barriers to fresh F&Vs in retail outlets, even when compared with the rural community. The low availability of retail F&Vs in the minority neighborhood was attributed to the lack of supermarkets and not the absolute lack of food stores. Public health intervention strategies to increase retail F&V availability in urban minority neighborhoods may aid in mitigating these disparities.
• Subjects:
  • Original Research
  • Diet
  • Food Supply
  • Fruit
  • Humans
  • Medically Underserved Area
  • Rural Population
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Urban Population
  • Vegetables
• Source:
  Prev Chronic Dis. 2008; 5(4).
• ISSN:
  1545-1151
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U48/DP000028/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  New York
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  5
• Issue:
  4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/20286/cdc_20286_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 483.71 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Preventing Chronic Disease
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6fad015296e8bcdbc6a116d05cfa7ea489e6ba19eeabfe728b24d656b92ffa00d8213663a3d986f1e0085a0aaa112286bfc44c57e0e83c01055ac435dc9e6a44