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Measuring Food Access and Food Deserts for Policy Purposes

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  • Michele Ver Ploeg
  • Paula Dutko
  • Vince Breneman

Abstract

Policymakers have dedicated increasing attention to whether Americans have access to healthful food. As a result, various methods for measuring food store access at the national level have been developed to identify areas that lack access. However, these methods face definitional, data, and methodological limitations. The focus on neighborhoods instead of individuals underestimates the barriers that some individuals face in accessing healthy food, and overestimates the problem in other neighborhoods. This paper reviews and critiques currently available national-level measures of food access. While multiple measures of food access are needed to understand the problem, we recommend greater attention be paid to individual measures of food store access.

Suggested Citation

  • Michele Ver Ploeg & Paula Dutko & Vince Breneman, 2015. "Measuring Food Access and Food Deserts for Policy Purposes," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 205-225.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:apecpp:v:37:y:2015:i:2:p:205-225.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/aepp/ppu035
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alessandro Bonanno & Francesco Bimbo & Elena Castellari & Paolo Sckokai, 2017. "Five-a-Day, Fruit and Vegetables Portions, and the Food Environment: The Italian Case," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 682-709.
    2. Kühn, Frauke & Lichters, Marcel & Krey, Nina, 2020. "The touchy issue of produce: Need for touch in online grocery retailing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 244-255.
    3. Elina T Page & Elizabeth Larimore & John A Kirlin & Mark Denbaly, 2019. "The National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey: Innovations and Research Insights," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 215-234, June.
    4. Jiaojiao Li & Guobao Song & Henry Musoke Semakula & Yijie Dou & Shushen Zhang, 2019. "Food access inequalities in Chinese urban neighborhoods: a case study of the Dalian development zone," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(5), pages 1087-1099, October.
    5. Wu, Kaidi, 2020. "The Effect of SNAP on Dietary Quality: Evidence from FoodAPS," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304462, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Richards, Timothy J. & Chenarides, Lauren & Çakir, Metin, 2022. "Dollar Store Entry," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322100, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Lauren Chenarides & Alessandro Bonanno & Anne Palmer, 2021. "If You Build Them… Will it Matter? Food Stores' Presence and Perceived Barriers to Purchasing Healthy Foods in the Northeastern U.S," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(3), pages 1076-1100, September.
    8. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Taylor, Rebecca, 2016. "Store Choice among Low Income Households," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt33z409dq, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    9. Kathryn Teigen De Master & Jess Daniels, 2019. "Desert wonderings: reimagining food access mapping," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(2), pages 241-256, June.
    10. Raphael D. Isokpehi & Matilda O. Johnson & Bryanna Campos & Arianna Sanders & Thometta Cozart & Idethia S. Harvey, 2020. "Knowledge Visualizations to Inform Decision Making for Improving Food Accessibility and Reducing Obesity Rates in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-27, February.
    11. Asmamaw A. Gebrehiwot & Leila Hashemi-Beni & Lyubov A. Kurkalova & Chyi L. Liang & Manoj K. Jha, 2022. "Using ABM to Study the Potential of Land Use Change for Mitigation of Food Deserts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-23, August.

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