Abstract

Food Deserts and Food Oases in Hamilton County, OH
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Sagar Shah, Thomas Wuerzer

"Access to food" in low-income neighborhoods has been identified as one of the most important factor explaining food insecurity, thus socio-economic characteristics of neighborhood and food security are related. For this project, ArcGIS (with spatial and network analyst) was used to identify hot zones of food deserts (areas that lack access to 'healthy' food stores) and food oases (areas that have access to 'healthy' food stores) for Hamilton County, Ohio. In a parcel-based study, all the parcels beyond walkable distance (0.5 mile) from a healthy food store were considered as 'food unsecured'. Next, GIS was used to model social-economic characteristics of the neighborhoods at block group level. We expected to find high correlations between disadvantaged population and food deserts. The presentation shows how to model/analyze food deserts, the results for Hamilton County, OH, and how public and private sectors can use the results for decision-making.