Impact of Neighborhood Sociodemographic Characteristics on Food Store Accessibility in the United States Based on the 2020 US Census Data

BACKGROUND: It has been previously reported that access to quality food is greatly impacted by neighborhood food store quality and availability, which in turn is determined by a complex interplay of sociodemographic factors. Low-income predominantly Black neighborhoods face the most limited access to quality food. The purpose of this study was to examine the newly available 2020 Census to see if any significant change has occurred to this pattern and if any new insights can be gained by analyzing these data. METHODS: 2020 US Census and current ReferenceUSA(TM) food store data were merged and multivariate Negative Binomial Count Regression Models were used to establish the relationship between different types of food stores (high, medium, and low quality) and neighborhood characteristics including urbanicity, poverty level, and race/ethnicity. RESULTS: 11.5% of the predominantly Non-Hispanic (NH) White census tracts (CT) (6,486 out of 56,192), 61.3% (4,002 out of 6,531) of the predominantly Non-Hispanic Black CTs, and 44.1% (3,644 out of 8,258) of the predominantly Hispanic CTs were in the high poverty category. Compared to the reference group of NH White/low-poverty group, the incident rate ratio (IRR) and 95% Confidence interval [CI] of having access to high quality food stores for NH Black was significantly lower starting at the low poverty level (0.57 [0.48, 0.67], p<0.001) and decreasing further with increasing poverty: NH Black/medium poverty (0.48 [0.42, 0.55], p<0.001); NH Black/high poverty (0.38, [0.34, 0.42], p<0.001). A similar pattern was seen with the Hispanic groups as well, though to a lesser degree. We further examined access to computer/electronic devices including smartphones from 2017 to 2020. High poverty NH Black households experienced the fastest growth from 73.6% access rate in 2017 to 82.6% in 2020, compared with 87.0% to 92.0% in the total population. CONCLUSION: Analyses of the 2020 Census data reveal that access to high-quality food stores in high-poverty minority neighborhoods, NH Black neighborhoods in particular, remains severely limited. Innovative interventions and emerging technologies, online grocery shopping for example, warrant further evaluation as potential strategies to improve access and decrease disparities in social determinants of healthy eating.