TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal Associations between Change in Neighborhood Social Disorder and Change in Food Swamps in an Urban Setting
AU - Mui, Yeeli
AU - Gittelsohn, Joel
AU - Jones-Smith, Jessica C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under award number 1R21HL102812-01A1; the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins University, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under award number U01HD086861; the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (OD) under award number U54HD070725. We would also like to thank C. Sylvia and Eddie C. Brown for their support through their Brown Community Healthy Scholarship Program; Jamie Harding and Amanda Behrens Buczynski at the Center for a Livable Future for their geocoding and mapping expertise.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, The New York Academy of Medicine.
PY - 2017/2/1
Y1 - 2017/2/1
N2 - Few studies have examined how neighborhood contextual features may influence the food outlet mix. We evaluated the relationship between changes in neighborhood crime and changes in the food environment, namely the relative density of unhealthy (or intermediate) food outlets out of total food outlets, or food swamp score, in Baltimore City from 2000 to 2012, using neighborhood fixed-effects linear regression models. Comparing neighborhoods to themselves over time, each unit increase in crime rate was associated with an increase in the food swamp score (b = 0.13; 95% CI, −0.00017 to 0.25). The association with food swamp score was in the same direction for violent crime and in the inverse direction for arrests related to juvenile crimes (proxy of reduced crime), but did not reach statistical significance when examined separately. Unfavorable conditions, such as crime, may deter a critical consumer base, diminishing the capacity of a community to attract businesses that are perceived to be neighborhood enhancing. Addressing these more distal drivers may be important for policies and programs to improve these food environments.
AB - Few studies have examined how neighborhood contextual features may influence the food outlet mix. We evaluated the relationship between changes in neighborhood crime and changes in the food environment, namely the relative density of unhealthy (or intermediate) food outlets out of total food outlets, or food swamp score, in Baltimore City from 2000 to 2012, using neighborhood fixed-effects linear regression models. Comparing neighborhoods to themselves over time, each unit increase in crime rate was associated with an increase in the food swamp score (b = 0.13; 95% CI, −0.00017 to 0.25). The association with food swamp score was in the same direction for violent crime and in the inverse direction for arrests related to juvenile crimes (proxy of reduced crime), but did not reach statistical significance when examined separately. Unfavorable conditions, such as crime, may deter a critical consumer base, diminishing the capacity of a community to attract businesses that are perceived to be neighborhood enhancing. Addressing these more distal drivers may be important for policies and programs to improve these food environments.
KW - Crime
KW - Food environment
KW - Food outlets
KW - Food swamp
KW - Social disorder
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85009168158&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85009168158&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11524-016-0107-0
DO - 10.1007/s11524-016-0107-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 28074429
AN - SCOPUS:85009168158
SN - 1099-3460
VL - 94
SP - 75
EP - 86
JO - Journal of Urban Health
JF - Journal of Urban Health
IS - 1
ER -