Focus Area: Food Access

Legal Notes: Open Campus Lunch. Off the Map: Extracurricular School Food

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This document, a companion to Off the Map: Extracurricular School Food-Open Campus Lunch, provides a legal framework for the issues surrounding open-campus lunch policies, which allow high school students to go off-campus to purchase and eat lunch. The purpose of the document is to help readers identify key legal access points for reaching policy goals More

Inequality in Obesigenic Environments: Fast Food Density in New York City

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This paper documents the relation between racial and socioeconomic inequalities and the density of fast food in New York City. The researchers found that areas that were predominantly Black had higher densities of fast food than predominantly White areas, regardless of income level. Such results highlight the need to develop policy-level interventions to address racial More

Neighborhood Environments: Disparities in Access to Healthy Foods in the U.S.

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This comprehensive review examined 54 studies that evaluated neighborhood access to food outlets, the types of foods available in stores and restaurants, dietary information and weight status. The review found that individuals who have better access to supermarkets and limited access to fast-food restaurants tend to have healthier diets and lower rates of obesity. Individuals More

Studying the Relationship Between Perceived and Objective Food Environments, Dietary Intake and Weight Status in Latino Families

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This study will examine associations between neighborhood food environments, dietary intake and weight status among Latino families with preschool-age children. The specific aims of this work are to: (a) identify individual, familial and environmental predictors of perceived neighborhood food environments among Latino parents, (b) examine the association between parents’ neighborhood perceptions and children’s dietary intake More

Analyzing the Financial Impact of Selling Healthy Versus Unhealthy Foods on a Small Store in a Low-Income Neighborhood

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To better understand how to improve healthy food access in low-income neighborhoods, the aim of this study is to examine financial incentives around selling specific types of food. Specifically, this research will: (a) analyze the financial benefits of selling healthy and unhealthy food items from the perspective of a small food store business in a More

Investigating Access to Affordable Healthy Foods Among Rural Low-Income Children in Maine

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The goal of this study is to examine how food environments influence rural childhood obesity rates and food choices, in order to ultimately help policymakers find effective rural policy interventions. Specifically, this research will investigate the community-based healthy food environment (defined as food access, cost and quality for healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables, More

Identifying and Evaluating Food Environment Changes Improving Access to Affordable Healthy Foods in Low-Income Communities

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The goal of this research is to evaluate the Fresh to You (FTY) program, which aims to increase year-round access to affordable, high-quality, fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income families through implementation of year-round discount fruit and vegetable markets in community organizations. Specifically, this work will consist of (a) conducting process evaluations of FTY in More

Assessing How Agricultural Policy Can Be Changed to Help Farmers Succeed in Producing and Distributing Healthy Food to Children and Their Communities

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This project will identify laws and policies affecting production and distribution of healthier foods to local communities’ schools, institutions, farmers’ markets, and grocery stores. It will analyze policies that currently discourage farmers from producing and distributing healthy foods, and identify policies that could encourage farmers to produce and distribute healthy foods in a community-based system, More