Transcript Physical

A study of fruit and vegetable
accessibility in rural areas of England
James Sully
[email protected]
Main research aims
To understand how physical, economic and social
factors influence access to fruit and vegetables in
rural areas of England
To understand how fruit and vegetable access in
rural areas of England affects individual diets and
health
Physical – factors potentially affecting fruit and vegetable
access in rural areas
Mid-1970s onwards - expansion of edge-of-town supermarkets caused
the closure of many small food stores led to a declining number of
opportunities for purchasing fruit and vegetables
2000s onwards - expansion of the major food multiples into the
convenience sector e.g. garage forecourts, Express stores etc. has
caused the rate of closures of smaller food stores to accelerate
resulting in a further decline in food shopping opportunities
Certain groups of rural England: low mobility groups, low socio-economic
status groups etc. most likely to suffer from poor access to fruit and
vegetables because they are unable to travel easily to supermarkets and
may not have a local food store to purchase fruit and vegetables
Economic – factors potentially affecting fruit
and vegetable access in rural England
Cost of fruit and vegetables varies between stores and
between store-types: supermarkets tend to be cheaper
than smaller food stores but
Including the cost of individual travel may result in their
being more expensive
Low income groups of the rural population may suffer
from poor economic access
Social – factors potentially affecting fruit and
vegetable access in rural England
Nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, lifestyle
choices and cooking skills have all been identified as
determinants of an individual accessing fruit and
vegetables
Individuals may have good physical and economic access
to fruit and vegetables but social barriers may still
exist e.g. an individual may not be aware of the
importance of consuming 5 portions of fruit and
vegetables per day
Methodology
•
Linear programming will be used to calculate fruit and
vegetable price information. The minimum cost of fruit and
vegetables at each food store in the study area (subject to
palatability and nutritional constraints) will be calculated
•
GIS will calculate the distances between centroid points of
Output Areas and food stores and a travel cost will be
attached to the minimum purchase cost of fruit and
vegetables at each store
•
Those Output Areas where fruit and vegetables are the most
expensive, taking into account actual cost and travel cost,
become the focus for further study
Surveys will be carried out collecting information on:
• Individual and household demographic and socio-economic
characteristics e.g. car ownership, age, gender, educational
attainment etc
• Shopping habits in respect of fruit and vegetable purchases e.g.
shopping frequency, mode of travel to and from usual store for
purchasing fruit and vegetable etc
• Nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, lifestyles choices etc.
• Individual fruit and vegetable consumption
Methodological problems - 1
- How to measure individual fruit and vegetable consumption in
relation to distance from certain store-types e.g. large
supermarket, small independent food store etc.
- Individual fruit and vegetable consumption available from
surveys
- Distance to store-type available from GIS
- Solving this problem will establish whether households living
close to a large supermarket etc. e.g. within a 1,000 metres
radius consume more fruit and vegetables than those living more
than 1,000 metres away
- Is it possible to run different models grouping individuals and
households by demographic and socio-economic characteristics?
Other methodological problems – 2a
To determine the individual and household demographic and
socio-economic characteristics that predict which food storetype is used for purchasing fruit and vegetables
i.e. store-type the dependent categorical variable and
demographic and socio-economic characteristics the
independent predictors
Data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics and
usual food store-type for fruit and vegetable purchases
available from survey
Solving this problem will allow identification of those groups of
the rural population able to access large supermarkets with
lower cost, wide variety fruit and vegetables and those shopping
at smaller, more expensive, limited range food stores
Other methodological problems – 2b
To determine the relative importance of physical, economic and
social factors in predicting access to fruit and vegetables by
store-type
3 indices: physical, economic and social will be constructed from
data collected in the surveys. Each index will contain 5 levels
e.g. worst access = 0 – 5, best access 21 - 25
Again store type would become the categorical dependent
variable but in this model the three indices (each with 5 levels)
become the explanatory variables
Solving this problem will establish to what extent each of the
three factors (each disaggregated into 5 levels): physical,
economic and social predict access to different store-types