Morland K, Wing S, Poole C. Neighborhood characteristics associated with the location of food stores and food service places. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2002;22:23-29.
The authors examine the distribution of food stores and food service places in Mississippi, North Carolina, Maryland, and Minnesota by neighborhood wealth and racial segregation. They found that there were three times fewer supermarkets in the poorest neighborhoods than in wealthier neighborhoods. Medium-wealth neighborhoods had the highest prevalence of convenience stores attached to gas stations. Bars and taverns were three times more common in the lowest-wealth neighborhoods than in the highest-wealth neighborhoods. Predominantly white neighborhoods had more than four times as many supermarkets as did predominantly black neighborhoods. Residents of the poorest neighborhoods had the lowest levels of car ownership, and blacks were less likely to own cars than were whites. Lack of private transportation may make it especially difficult for residents to obtain healthy food.
Without access to supermarkets that offer a wide variety of foods at lower prices, poor and minority communities may not have equal access to the variety of health food choices available to wealthy and nonminority communities. Attributing their findings to economic policies that have supported corporate retail chains, home loan policies that have favored whites, and land use policies that have favored affluent white neighborhoods, the authors suggest changes in economic and land use policies to address these inequities.
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