Complexity in the Desert: Heterogeneity in Food Shopping and Purchasing Patterns within Disadvantaged Urban Communities
Open Access
- Author:
- Logan, Ellis Scott
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 15, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Stephen A. Matthews, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Stephen A. Matthews, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Michelle Frisco, Committee Member
Barrett Lee, Committee Member
Patricia Miranda-Hartsuff, Outside Member - Keywords:
- food desert
demography
neighborhood health
urban
grocery store
dietary health - Abstract:
- This dissertation attempts to clarify complex grocery store usage and dietary patterns within a relatively disadvantaged urban “food desert”. Further, the effectiveness of a specific policy aimed at improving the built food environment (the Fresh Food Financing Initiative) was assessed. Analyses rely on the Philadelphia Neighborhood Food Environment, Diet, and Health Study, a quasi-experimental longitudinal study in Philadelphia focusing on two communities – the intervention site and control site – one of which received a new supermarket between baseline and follow-up. High-quality survey and geo-coded point data for stores and homes was examined using a variety of regression methods. This work pushes the field forward in several ways. First, this research investigates grocery-shopping choices through a “food-store network” framework, allowing for the usages of multiple food-stores for discrete shopping activities, at varying levels importance and frequencies. Second, it disentangles food-store access and utilization and discusses both policy-based and theoretical implications therein. Third, it assesses both healthy and unhealthy food purchasing and consumption habits as they relate to diverse shopping behavior within urban “food deserts.” Fourth, it assesses relative disadvantages within the “food desert” for socio-demographic groups, particularly those with the greatest risk of maladies related to nutritional health. Results indicate that people utilize a number of different food-shopping strategies to navigate relatively constrained and inadequate “foodscapes”; some strategies are more effective than others are in terms of healthy dietary choices. The impact of the intervention was mixed, but was generally beneficial for those who stood to gain the most in the community, and for those who used the new store for specific purposes. This dissertation emphasizes heterogeneity over homogeneity when assessing shopping behaviors and dietary decisions in low food-access communities.