(PTFS09-02-23) Mapping Food Access in Rural Communities in the United States

Objectives: Rural communities in the United States face unique challenges accessing food compared to urban communities and have increasingly relied on non-traditional food retailers which sell fewer healthy and fresh foods. The purpose of this research was to map food access in Maine and Vermont – the two most rural states in the country and identify underserved communities.

Methods: We developed a geographic information system to map access to food retailers and food assistance programs in Maine and Vermont. We adapted existing approaches to mapping food access to more reliably account for the distinct challenges faced by remote, rural residents such as travel time and seasonal road closures. We obtained location data for community food assistance programs from local food banks, location data for food retailers from business directories, and location data for federal food assistance programs from the USDA and state government agencies. Using the location data and publicly available transportation network data, we built a spatial scale measuring food access (very low to very high) at the zip code and census tract levels. Finally, we overlayed demographic data with the food access scale to identify characteristics of low food access regions.

Results: Preliminary results indicate that food access score varies significantly by location across the two states. Low food access areas exist in both rural and urban communities, but rural communities, especially remote rural communities, were more likely to experience low access to both food retailers and food assistance programs. Furthermore, in both rural and urban communities, low food access areas were more likely to have a lower median household income and higher poverty rate compared to areas with better food access.

Conclusions: Food access varies by location, which has serious implications for nutrition and health. Our work will be made available publicly as an interactive tool that community stakeholders can use to identify priority areas for additional services to improve food access. In future work we will combine the results of this mapping project with diet data collected from two representative surveys in Vermont and Maine to examine whether diet quality is associated with community food access score.

Funding Sources: USDA, University of Vermont