Access to Healthy, Affordable Foods Resource: The Food Environment Atlas

[HHS and USDA Mid-Atlantic Let's Move! Team]

The Food Environment Atlas

Posted August 16, 2011

 

 This is a great resources for identifying food deserts in your area! A food desert is any area in the industrialised world where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain. It is prevalent in rural as well as urban areas and is most prevalent in low-socioeconomic minority communities, and is associated with a variety of diet-related health problems.

 

This tool, the food environment atlas, is a resources created on the principle that food environment factors—such as store/restaurant proximity, food prices, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics—interact to influence food choices and diet quality.

 

The objectives of the Atlas are:

• To assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality

• To provide a spatial overview of a community’s ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so

 

The Food Environment Atlas can be found at http://www.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/ 

 

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