“Food insecurity has a high correlation with increased diabetes rates. In Chicago, the death rate from diabetes in a food desert is twice that of areas with access to grocery stores.”

Source: www.dosomething.org

Food deserts are places where residents have limited access to healthy food.  Here is a great map from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that shows low-income census tract that are more than one mile from supermarkets and rural areas that are more than 10 miles from the nearest supermarket.  Esri has also produced a food desert map that shows where unserved people (farther than 1 mile in urban/10 miles in rural) live in poverty.  For a household with a private automobile, distance to a supermarket isn’t that crucial an issue, but without an automobile, this lack of healthy food available becomes a significant challenge for residents that live in this neighborhood.  

 

Tags: food, urban, poverty, place, socioeconomic, food desert.