ArticleInternational journal of health geographics2015
Identifying food deserts and swamps based on relative healthy food access: a spatio-temporal Bayesian approach.
Article in International journal of health geographics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Food environment research in Canada: a rapid review of methodologies and measures deployed between 2010 and 2021.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Pooled it
- Participatory Design Process of a Supportive Digital Platform to Enhance Local Urban Food Systems.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal trends in food deserts, food swamps and food environments around schools in Wallonia, Belgium (2008-2024).Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Identifying and assessing online food delivery swamps in major Chinese cities.International journal of health geographics · 2026Article
- Social inequities in the community food environment: temporal analysis of food retail availability in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (2010-2022).Public health nutrition · 2025Review
- Article
- Influence of the food environment on obesity risk in a large cohort of US veterans by community type.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2024Article
- Effect of mobile food environments on fast food visits.Nature communications · 2024Article
- What's On the Menu? Towards Predicting Nutritional Quality of Food Environments.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Exploring the Retail Food Environment Surrounding Two Secondary Schools with Predominantly Pacific Populations in Tonga and New Zealand to Enable the Development of Mapping Methods Appropriate for Testing in a Classroom.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The Changing Landscape of Food Deserts and Swamps over More than a Decade in Flanders, Belgium.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Premiums for Residing in Unfavorable Food Environments: Are People Rational?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Assessing physical access to healthy food across United Kingdom: A systematic review of measures and findings.Obesity science & practice · 2022Review
- Understanding Pathways Between Agriculture, Food Systems, and Nutrition: An Evidence and Gap Map of Research Tools, Metrics, and Methods in the Last 10 Years.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
- Social inequalities in the surrounding areas of food deserts and food swamps in a Brazilian metropolis.International journal for equity in health · 2021Article
- U.S. county "food swamp" severity and hospitalization rates among adults with diabetes: A nonlinear relationship.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2020Article
- Intakes of energy, macronutrients and micronutrients of a population in severe food insecurity risk in Brazil.Public health nutrition · 2020Article
- Food Retail Environments in Greater Melbourne 2008-2016: Longitudinal Analysis of Intra-City Variation in Density and Healthiness of Food Outlets.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Examining associations between school food environment characteristics and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption among Canadian secondary-school students in the COMPASS study.Public health nutrition · 2019Article
- Access to healthy food retailers among formerly incarcerated individuals.Public health nutrition · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundObesity and other adverse health outcomes are influenced by individual- and neighbourhood-scale risk factors, including the food environment. At the small-area scale, past research has analysed spatial patterns of food environments for one time period, overlooking how food environments change over time. Further, past research has infrequently analysed relative healthy food access (RHFA), a measure that is more representative of food purchasing and consumption behaviours than absolute outlet density.
methodsThis research applies a Bayesian hierarchical model to analyse the spatio-temporal patterns of RHFA in the Region of Waterloo, Canada, from 2011 to 2014 at the small-area level. RHFA is calculated as the proportion of healthy food outlets (healthy outlets/healthy + unhealthy outlets) within 4-km from each small-area. This model measures spatial autocorrelation of RHFA, temporal trend of RHFA for the study region, and spatio-temporal trends of RHFA for small-areas.
resultsFor the study region, a significant decreasing trend in RHFA is observed (-0.024), suggesting that food swamps have become more prevalent during the study period. For small-areas, significant decreasing temporal trends in RHFA were observed for all small-areas. Specific small-areas located in south Waterloo, north Kitchener, and southeast Cambridge exhibited the steepest decreasing spatio-temporal trends and are classified as spatio-temporal food swamps.
conclusionsThis research demonstrates a Bayesian spatio-temporal modelling approach to analyse RHFA at the small-area scale. Results suggest that food swamps are more prevalent than food deserts in the Region of Waterloo. Analysing spatio-temporal trends of RHFA improves understanding of local food environment, highlighting specific small-areas where policies should be targeted to increase RHFA and reduce risk factors of adverse health outcomes such as obesity.
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