Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The food environment plays an important role in the ability to access food. It follows that household resources determine how the food environment may be utilized. Yet, research suggests that household resources alone are insufficient to predict food insecurity. Other structural neighborhood characteristics such as residential segregation by race and/or income may also play a role. While a rich body of literature has detailed the existence and impact of food deserts and food swamps, the underlying pathways by which residential segregation impacts the food environment, and in turn impacts food security, have not been examined previously. This paper aims to fill the gap in this area by examining how the associations of food insecurity with residential segregation and the food environment vary over space at the county level in the US.

Data on food security are obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and from Feeding America. American Community Survey (ACS) provides the data to measure residential segregation by race/ethnicity and by income, using the indices of dissimilarity and isolation. The Retail Food Environment Index, a ratio of the numbers of healthy to less healthy food outlets accessible to residents of the county is calculated using geocoded data on food outlets obtained from Trade Dimensions. Variance function regression (VFR) is used to simultaneously model the means (between–county differences) and variances (within-county differences), and therefore the net effects of both residential segregation and the food environment on food insecurity.

Results will show how food insecurity varies over space at the county level with both the retail food environment and residential segregation. By shedding light on the specific aspects of residential segregation and the food environment that impact food insecurity, this paper fits into the debate over the consequences of segregation and the debate over effective food retail zoning. The social and spatial structure explained by these associations will help researchers and policymakers better understand the net effects of residential segregation and the food environment on the complex factors related to food insecurity.