ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2017
Food Swamps Predict Obesity Rates Better Than Food Deserts in the United States.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05939349 (A Prescription for Health Equity), which is not on this map. Cited by 264 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Prescription for Health Equity: A Healthcare Provider-based Produce Prescription Program for People With Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes
Who cites it
264 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Children's nutritional health and wellbeing in food insecure households in Europe: A qualitative meta-ethnography.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- The impact of the consumer and neighbourhood food environment on dietary intake and obesity-related outcomes: A systematic review of causal impact studies.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Effects of a Family- and Community-Based Diet and Physical Activity Intervention on Home Availability of Fruit, Vegetables, and Sugar-Containing Foods in Primarily Hispanic Households: Secondary Data Analysis from a Randomized Controlled Trial.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Trial
- Google Places API-Based US Built Environment Retail (UBER) Index and Its Spatial Association With Diabetes Prevalence Across US Counties: Cross-Sectional Ecological Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Observational
- Prevalence and Correlates of Perceived Food Noise Among U.S. Adults in a Nationally Representative Sample.Obesity science & practice · 2026Article
- Industrial Air Toxicant Exposure and Individual Mortality: Evidence from the Americans' Changing Lives Cohort, 1986-2019.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Longitudinal Associations of Neighborhood Food Access with Child Body Mass Index and Obesity.Childhood obesity (Print) · 2026Article
- The global cardiovascular-kidney-liver-metabolic burden from 1990 to 2023.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic Disparities in the Progression of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease and Barrett's Esophagus to Esophageal Adenocarcinoma.Annals of surgery · 2026Article
- Ultra-Processed Food Dietary Patterns and Obesity: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of NHANES 2021-2023.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Article
- 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
- The social environment and cognitive aging over the life course: laying out critical concepts and research gaps.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Changes in Neighborhood Foodscapes From 2003 to 2023 by Area Rurality in the United States.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- Islands in an Obesogenic Ocean: A Multiscale Spatial Analysis of School Neighborhood Food Environments in Michigan.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Association Between Food Environment Characteristics and Overweight and Anemia in Socially Vulnerable Children Living in Favelas.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Social determinants of health in medical education: insights from final-year students in a multicentre study in Italy.Updates in surgery · 2026Article
- Mapping the Relationship between Neighborhood-Level Factors and Nutrition Environments of Restaurants Offering Children's Menus.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2026Article
- Retail food environment assessments: a case study of consumer and community nutrition environment perspectives of Logan, Utah.BMC public health · 2026Article
204 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of food environments, characterized as food swamps, on adult obesity rates. Food swamps have been described as areas with a high-density of establishments selling high-calorie fast food and junk food, relative to healthier food options. This study examines multiple ways of categorizing food environments as food swamps and food deserts, including alternate versions of the Retail Food Environment Index. We merged food outlet, sociodemographic and obesity data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Environment Atlas, the American Community Survey, and a commercial street reference dataset. We employed an instrumental variables (IV) strategy to correct for the endogeneity of food environments (i.e., that individuals self-select into neighborhoods and may consider food availability in their decision). Our results suggest that the presence of a food swamp is a stronger predictor of obesity rates than the absence of full-service grocery stores. We found, even after controlling for food desert effects, food swamps have a positive, statistically significant effect on adult obesity rates. All three food swamp measures indicated the same positive association, but reflected different magnitudes of the food swamp effect on rates of adult obesity (
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.