Food Availability in the Heartland: Exploring the Effects of Neighborhood Racial and Income Composition

This article examines the relationships between neighborhood racial and income composition and healthy food availability. We explore the extent to which physical and social isolation affects healthy food availability for groups marginalized by race and class in a context largely missing from the literature. We use census tract data and five‐year estimates from the American Community Survey to produce maps illustrating the patterns of race and income composition in Topeka, Kansas. Included in these maps are data points illustrating the distribution of stores offering healthy foods. We find that, as in the large metro areas analyzed thus far, the distribution of healthy food stores in Topeka is similarly patterned. Blacker (and poorer) neighborhoods tend to have the lowest levels of healthy food availability. We conclude with a discussion of the relevance of this work to the knowledge base regarding food environments and health in the United States.     

Assessment of community food resources: A Latino neighborhood study in upstate New York

This study aims to assess availability, affordability, and accessibility of food items in a low-income Latino neighborhood within a small city using an on-site food store survey. Store locations were identified by on-site GPS. Results showed the Latino neighborhood had limited availability and above average cost of high-fiber bread. Fresh vegetables were more expensive compared to the non-Latino neighborhood, and more stores in the Latino neighborhood participated in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Food Program. The lack of supermarkets, fewer stores with disability access, and the lack of public transportation left Latino residents without a vehicle or with physical disabilities with few food shopping options.     

Food Expensiveness in Scotland's Remote Areas: An Analysis of Household Food Purchases☆

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether consumers in Scotland's remote areas suffer from food prices that are higher than the average national prices (i.e., whether a “remoteness premium” exists). The question has been raised by several organizations in those communities looking at the high prices in local stores. This paper provides a new perspective using actual purchasing prices of a sample of 5,252 households in Scotland for 2017 and 2018. In this way, households' ability to shop for lower prices is considered, unlike in previous studies. An expensiveness index was computed to measure the expensiveness of food at household level and control for differences in quality. It showed that consumers in remote areas pay a small premium (0.3 to 0.4 percent) with respect to average prices, which is statistically significant but economically not relevant. To understand the effect of several factors, AHEI was regressed on a number of explanatory variables including local area characteristics and household demographics and consumers' shopping strategy. The results were used to simulate three hypothetical scenarios related to impact of changes in the population's age, access to discount stores, and social deprivation on food expensiveness.     

The Value of Domestic Supply Chains: Producers,Wholesalers, and Urban Consumers in Colombia

Global value chains are potential links between smallholder farmers in developing countries and lucrative markets in industrialised nations. However, food access for poor consumers in Third World cities depends largely on traditional domestic supply chains. This article focuses on the market for perishables in Colombia, which is dominated by peasant farming and ranching, wholesale (spot) markets, and small, family‐run corner stores and butchers. Here, evidence suggests that, despite characterisation of traditional supply chains as inefficient, they provide critical outlets for smallholders' heterogeneous production while simultaneously ensuring availability of cheap food for poor urban consumers.     

Breaking the Food Chains: An Investigation of Food Justice Activism*

This article develops the concept of food justice, which places access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food in the contexts of institutional racism, racial formation, and racialized geographies. Through comparative ethnographic case studies, we analyze the demands for food justice articulated by the Karuk Tribe of California and the West Oakland Food Collaborative. Activists in these communities use an environmental justice frame to address access to healthy food, advocating for a local food system in West Oakland, and for the demolition of Klamath River dams that prevent subsistence fishing. Food justice serves as a theoretical and political bridge between scholarship and activism on sustainable agriculture, food insecurity, and environmental justice. This concept brings the environmental justice emphasis on racially stratified access to environmental benefits to bear on the sustainable agriculture movement's attention to the processes of food production and consumption. Furthermore, we argue that the concept of food justice can help the environmental justice movement move beyond several limitations of their frequent place‐based approach and the sustainable agriculture movement to more meaningfully incorporate issues of equity and social justice. Additionally, food justice may help activists and policymakers working on food security to understand the institutionalized nature of denied access to healthy food.     

Food Deserts and Overweight Schoolchildren: Evidence from Pennsylvania*

Abstract The concept of the food desert, an area with limited access to retail food stores, has increasingly been used within social scientific and public health research to explore the dimensions of spatial inequality and community well‐being. While research has demonstrated that food deserts are frequently characterized by higher levels of poverty and food insecurity, there has been relatively little research examining the relationship between food deserts and obesity, particularly in rural areas. In this article we use Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques to identify food desert areas in rural Pennsylvania. We then analyze student body mass index (BMI) data along with census and school district‐level data to determine the extent to which the percentage of a school district's population residing within a food desert is positively associated with increased incidence of child overweight among students within the district. We find that school districts with higher percentages of populations located within food deserts are more likely to be structurally and economically disadvantaged. Net of these district‐level structural and economic characteristics, we additionally find a positive relationship between increased rates of child overweight and the percentage of the district population residing in a food desert.     

Food Security at Whose Expense? A Critique of the Canadian Temporary Farm Labour Migration Regime and Proposals for Change

Temporary farm labour migration schemes in Canada have been justified on the premise that they bolster food security for Canadians by addressing agricultural labour shortages, while tempering food insecurity in the Global South via remittances. Such appeals hinge on an ideology defining migrants as racialized outsiders to Canada. Drawing on qualitative interviews and participant observation in Mexico, Jamaica and Canada, we critically analyse how Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is tied to ideological claims about national food security and agrarianism, and how it purports to address migrant workers’ own food insecurity. We argue remittances only partially, temporarily mitigate food insecurity and fail to strengthen migrant food sovereignty. Data from our clinical encounters with farm workers illustrate structural barriers to healthy food access and negative health consequences. We propose an agenda for further research, along with policies to advance food security and food sovereignty for both migrants and residents of Canada.     

Food Security: An Ecological–Social Analysis to Promote Social Development

Coupled with the obesity epidemic, food insecurity presents a public health and social crisis. The United States' industrialized food system embodies an unsustainable network of production and unequal distribution of food creating threats to both the natural environment and human development. Ecological, economic, and social systems are interdependent and their relationships to food security are complex and dynamic. Social workers have a unique set of community practice knowledge and skills that can help communities achieve greater access to affordable, healthy food. Building interdisciplinary networks to change food policies and develop sustainable and equitable food systems can address food insecurity.     

Solving the Problems of Iowa Food Deserts: Food Insecurity and Civic Structure*

Abstract Rural regions include places where food sources are not evenly distributed, leading to areas of concentration and food deserts—places where few or no grocery stores exist. Individuals are hypothesized to depend on personal connections and the civic structure of where they live to help them solve the problem of food insecurity. We find that residents living in poor rural counties with few grocery stores and perceptions of high civic structure are significantly less likely to be food insecure. A great deal of food giving and receiving is reported, but these personal connections do not decrease the odds of being food insecure. Lower incomes and being younger increase the odds of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that investments in strengthening the social structure of rural communities along with strategies that increase incomes can help households solve the problem of food insecurity.     

A Recipe for Change: Reclamation of Indigenous Food Sovereignty in O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation for Decolonization,Resource Sharing,and Cultural Restoration

Abstract

O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN), an Indigenous community in northern Manitoba, Canada, was flooded and forced to relocate from ancestral lands to a nearby settlement under such circumstances. Regaining strength from their inherent cultural values grounded in their relationship with the land, OPCN eventually formed a community-based food program called Ithinto Mechisowin (IMP) (‘food from the land’). This article uses OPCN's concept of resource (wechihituwin) and decolonization (pasekonekewin) to present a nuanced understanding of Indigenous food systems in Canada. We argue that the ways in which IMP inspires reconnection with land, thereby improving access to culturally appropriate healthy food, are steps forward in strengthening Indigenous food sovereignty.     

Bridging the gap: The impact of home visiting programs for orphans and vulnerable children on social grant uptake in South Africa

Cash transfer programs hold significant potential to mitigate the economic burdens resulting from the HIV epidemic and enhance the wellbeing of affected children. South Africa offers two cash transfers designed specifically to benefit children: the Child Support Grant, for low income families with children, and the Foster Child Grant, for children living outside of parental care. Given the high proportion of HIV-affected children who qualify for these grants, increasing grant access among eligible families is a natural objective for many programs targeting orphans and vulnerable children. We present results from a quasi-experimental study examining differences in grant uptake over a two year period among 1487 children enrolled in one of two types of supportive home visiting programming: volunteer-based or paraprofessional. The study also examined related outcomes including household food security and children's access to basic educational and material needs. Results show that programs staffed with trained paraprofessionals who received training, compensation and other support were significantly more effective at linking families to social grants for children. Controlling for important covariates, at follow-up participants in the paraprofessional model programs were nearly three times as likely as volunteer-based service recipients to have access to the highest grant they were eligible to receive. Grant receipt was also positively associated with household food security and children's obtainment of basic educational and material resources. Effective strategies for promoting social grant access among HIV-affected households therefore have the potential to yield significant improvements in wellbeing for orphans and vulnerable children.     

Developing a Multicomponent Model of Nutritious Food Access and Related Implications for Community and Policy Practice

Access to nutritious foods is limited in disenfranchised communities in the United States. Policies are beginning to focus on improving nutritious food access in these contexts; yet, few theories are available to guide this work. We developed a conceptual model of nutritious food access based on the qualitative responses of food consumers in 2 different regions of the American South. Five domains (economic, service delivery, spatial–temporal, social, and personal) and related dimensions of nutritious food access were identified. The conceptual model provides practical guidance to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners working to improve nutritious food access in communities.     

The importance of matching the evaluation population to the intervention population: Using Medicaid data to reach hard-to-reach intervention populations

Subject recruitment is a challenge for researchers and evaluators, particularly with populations that are traditionally hard to reach and involve in research, such as low-income and minority groups. However, when the evaluation sample does not reflect a program's intended audience, the discrepancy may lead to evaluation results that are not valid for that audience. We conducted evaluation activities for a state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) intervention that promotes consumption of fruits and vegetables (F&V) in low-income areas. Previous program evaluations efforts had failed to obtain a sufficient proportion of individuals identified as low-income based on their participation in SNAP. We used state Medicaid data as a means of identifying low-income families to recruit for a telephone survey (n = 311) and an in-depth qualitative interview (n = 30) that we designed for the program being evaluated. We chose to focus on the dynamics of parent-child communication around F&V because we considered this previously unevaluated component of the intervention vital to understanding program effectiveness. Our results indicated that the Medicaid database provided an appropriate sample and that parents reported frequent F&V requests from their children. Parents also reported that they would positively respond to requests in many different settings, such as grocery stores (92.6%), restaurants (88.1%), and fast food restaurants (80.4%).     

Spatial Inequality in Access to Food Assistance in Indiana

This project is an analysis of the spatial inequality that exists between rural and urban areas in access to food assistance agencies. I gathered the population of all food pantries and soup kitchens in 24 sample counties in Indiana and mapped the location of these agencies using geographic information system analysis. Using the population center of the census block group, I measured the distance from the population center to the nearest food assistance agency. If the closest agency was more than a mile away, the census block group was considered a food assistance desert, a concept I created that draws on the food desert measurement. I found that rural high‐poverty counties in my sample are the most likely to contain census block groups that are food assistance deserts, and urban high‐poverty counties are the least likely to contain food assistance deserts. From these findings, I determine that access to assistance agencies needs to be increased in rural areas, especially rural areas with high‐poverty rates.     

An exploratory study of recreational drug use and nutrition-related behaviors and attitudes among adolescents.

This study examined drug use and eating behaviors among adolescents. The data were collected by phone interviews from 401 northern Nevadan students in grades seven to twelve. Students were divided for comparison into three groups according to their involvement with drugs: Abstainers, conventional users, and high-risk users. Analyses indicated that high-risk users less frequently ate lunch, meals at home, and with their families, and ate more often at convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and with friends. In addition, female high-risk users had significantly more negative perceptions regarding their food choices than the other female groups, and were more concerned with dieting than their high-risk using male peers. Male and female high-risk users believed that their drug use affected their eating habits. Implications for prevention programming and future research are discussed.     

Primary Care Providers’ Perspectives on Screening Older Adult Patients for Food Insecurity

Food insecurity has been associated with poor health and health outcomes among older adults, yet food assistance resources are available and underutilized. Routine screening and referral for food insecurity in primary care is one avenue to connect food-insecure older adults with available resources. This qualitative study aims to better understand the beliefs of primary care providers (PCPs) about food security screening and referrals in a primary care setting and perceived barriers to implementation. PCPs (n = 16) who have older adult patients but do not routinely screen for food insecurity were interviewed by phone. PCPs recognize the importance of food security for older patients and discuss nutrition and food access with patients under certain circumstances. Concerns emerged with regard to implementing a systematic screening and referral process: limited time to meet with patients, a lack of resources for addressing food insecurity, and prioritizing food insecurity at both the health system and the patient levels. Despite perceived challenges, PCPs are receptive to the idea of systematically screening and referring patients to external resources for food assistance and support. Barriers could be addressed by health systems prioritizing food insecurity as a health concern and public and private payers providing reimbursement for screening.     

Understanding the concept of food sovereignty using the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP)

This article deepens the understanding of the emerging food sovereignty concept using a case study of a home-grown school feeding programme that promotes local food demand – supply linkages. A school feeding programme in four selected districts in Ghana is analysed with respect to community involvement in programme implementation and management as well as its socio-economic impacts. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches was used in data collection and analysis. Results showed a significant improvement in household food access and months of adequate household food provisioning, which were used as measurement proxies for food sovereignty, as a result of access to local market created by the Ghana School Feeding Programme. However, the study recommends more empirical evidence from research to support the claim that using locally produced food for school feeding actually reduces poverty and malnutrition in rural farming communities.     

Return to Freedom: Anti-GMO Aloha ‘Āina Activism on Molokai as an Expression of Place-based Food Sovereignty

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of food sovereignty on the island of Molokai, where the Hawaiian value of aloha ‘āina, or love for the land, guides local efforts to preserve and promote local food production. This organizing concept also has political undertones—food sovereignty requires access to land and resources, both of which Native Hawaiians have historically been dispossessed of since colonial contact. In the paper, I examine current anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) activism as one example of the uniquely Hawaiian food sovereignty efforts taking place on Molokai. I present two key arguments. First, I show how the anti-GMO platform, which has garnered support from both native Hawaiians and more recent settlers, reflects a strategic alliance that gives greater momentum to Hawai‘i's food sovereignty movement, which in turn is viewed by a growing number of Native Hawaiians as a pathway toward Indigenous sustainable self-determination. I also draw from the Molokai case to illustrate a perceived tension between community-based work and political engagement that exists within both the food sovereignty paradigm and the contemporary Indigenous sovereignty framework. I argue that aloha ‘āina as a cultural and political praxis suggests ‘ways out’ of this apparent paradox, by showing how Hawaiians have historically engaged simultaneously in both community-based practices and political activism as a means to care for their land and people. While food sovereignty on Molokai calls for the privileging of place-based knowledge, there are lessons to be learnt for social movements elsewhere that are also struggling internally to deconstruct and define what is meant by food sovereignty, and how best to achieve it.