Initial Thesis Proposal

I am interested in hearing feedback on this. My ideas are still in development

Research Proposal

Background:

Poor diet is the cause of many adverse health effects, such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and many others (Must et al. 1999). There is a growing body of literature linking the lack of accessibility to healthy, diverse, and cheap food with bad dietary habits and food insecurity (Morland et al. 2002, Cummins and Macintyre 2002). Low accessibility areas, often coined “food deserts”, have been defined as areas that are both far from suitable retail food outlets, and are inhabited by those without suitable access to transportation, often those with low income, minorities, and the elderly (Apparicio et al. 2007, Zenk et al. 2005). There has been a growing social concern over the existence of food deserts in the last decade, as large supermarkets have moved out into the suburbs (Clark et al 2002), leaving many inner city and low income areas reliant on small independent stores (Eisenhauer 2001), many of which lack healthy food and are more expensive (MacDonald and Nelson 1991, Chung and Myers 1999).

Various indicators have been developed over the years to study the spatial variability in access to food retailers. These include simple provision indicators, accessibility indicators, and model-based indicators. An example of a simple provision indicator is retail grocery square feet per household. The more sophisticated model-based indicators attempt to investigate the level of population-store interaction by estimating the demand and supply of a given area (Clark et al. 2002). Spatial accessibility has most commonly applied to hospital access, and consequently this application is where many of the more advanced measurement techniques have been developed. These have been simplified into four general categories as “provider-to-population ratios, distance to nearest provider, average distance to a set of providers, and gravitational models of provider influence” (Guagliardo 2004). It has been observed that results can vary significantly depending on the measurement being used. This has prompted a recent study in Montreal that combines 3 different measurements, proximity, diversity, and variety, to measure spatial accessibility to food. Proximity is derived by using network shortest path distance, diversity is derived by measuring the total number of supermarkets within a walkable distance, and variety is derived by measuring mean distance to three different supermarket chains. The authors then go on to correlate this combined measure to a social depravation index using five variables to identify food deserts. These variables, based on percentage of the total population, include income, single parent families, unemployment, education, and immigration (Apparicio et al. 2007).

To my knowledge, there have been no studies locating the existence of food deserts in Albuquerque. It is an open question whether even the most sophisticated methodologies, particularly the recent Montreal study, would apply to Albuquerque in all respects. Albuquerque is a historically agricultural area, even though it has almost ceased to be a source of primary income for most farmers, especially the younger generation (Friends of Albuquerque 2006). Nevertheless, there is still an abundance of food sold in farmers markets and neighborhood food stands. Many of these agricultural neighborhoods might also be those that fit the common criteria as being food deserts.

Statement of Problem:

I want to contribute to the methodologies of identifying ‘food deserts’ by testing the common assumption that supermarket chains are the only indicator of healthy, cheap, and diverse food, especially for places similar in character to Albuquerque.

Objectives:

1.) I want to replicate the Montreal study, which appears to be the most sophisticated in assessing food accessibility, in Albuquerque.

2.) I want to revise/improve this methodology to reflect local agriculture by surveying where people get their food in areas that would be considered ‘food deserts’.

3.) I would then develop a set of metrics to reflect differences in diversity, health, and price between local and supermarket food retailers.

4.) I would use these metrics to possibly redefine ‘food desert’ boundaries in Albuquerque.

Method and Data Considerations:

1.) In identifying supermarkets, I will need to get access to a licensed database of food stores and geocode them into a map. I would also need to do some field checks to test the quality of the information.

2.) I will be relying heavily on census information to create a social depravity index in similar fashion to the Montreal study.

3.) I will need to develop a stratified random sample in order to survey the areas identified as food deserts.

4.) I need to do some more research on developing the metrics necessary for comparing the food characteristics of different food retailers. This is where I might need to get a committee member with a background in economics.

Discussion:

I hypothesize that in Albuquerque, the assumption that supermarkets are the only provider of food accessibility will be true regarding food diversity, but not always true regarding food health and price. If this is the case, then I believe that this study can help to more accurately define food deserts in Albuquerque and other urban environments that have similar characteristics. It might also contribute to the debate about how to alleviate food deserts. A few studies have pointed out the location of supermarkets in food deserts might actually exacerbate the problem, by putting many of the local vendors out of business and creating ‘micro-food deserts’ for those that cannot travel to shop, such as retirees, mothers with children, and the disabled (Clark et al. 2002). Although it might be outside the scope of my research, future research might investigate the possibility that a policy of supporting the creation of local farmers markets in ‘food deserts’ provides better food accessibility in some areas than that of attracting large supermarkets.

References:

1. Apparicio P, Cloutier M, Shearmur R: The case of Montreal’s missing food deserts: Evaluation of accessibility to food supermarkets. International Journal of Health Geographics 2007, 6:4.

2. Chung C, Myers S: Do the poor pay more for food? An analysis of grocery store availability and food price disparities. Journal of Consumer Affairs 1999, 33(2):276-296

3. Clarke G, Eyre H, Guy C: Deriving indicators of access to food retail provision in British cities: studies of Cardiff, Leeds and Bradford. Urban Studies 2002, 39(11):2041-2060.

4. Cummins S, Macintyre S: A systematic study of an urban foodscape: The price and availability of food in Greater Glasgow. Urban Stud 2002, 39(11):2115-2130.

5. Eisenhauer E: In poor health: Supermarket redlining and urban nutrition. Geojournal 2001, 53:125-134

6. Friends of Albuquerque: Friends of Albuquerque’s environmental story 2006

http://www.cabq.gov/aes/s2sv.html

7. Guagliardo, M: Spatial accessibility of primary care: concepts, methods, and challenges. International Journal of Health Geographics 2004, 3(3).

8. MacDonald J, Nelson P: Do the poor still payer more? Food price variations in large metropolitan areas. Journal of Urban Economics 1991, 30(3):344-359

9. Morland K, Wing S, Roux A, Poole C: Neighborhood Characteristics associated with the location of food stores and food service places. American Journal of Preventative Medicine 2002, 22(1):23-29

10. Must A, Spadano J, Coakley EH, Field A, Colditz, and Dietz WH: The disease burden associated with overweight and obesity. Journal of the American Medical Association 1999, 282:1523-29.

11. Smoyer-Tomic K, Spence J, Amrheim C: Food Deserts in the Prairies? Supermarket accessibility and neighborhood need in Edmonton, Canada. The Professional Geographer 2006, 58(3):307-326

12. Zenk S, Shulz A, Israel B, James S, Bao S, Wilson M: Neighborhood racial composition, neighborhood poverty, and the spatial accessibility of supermarkets in metropolitan Detroit. American Journal of Public Health 2005, 95(4):660-667.