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<p><span style="font-size:12px;">These data were prepared by USDA REE-ERS to analyze various populations and their access to food at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) authorized retailers. This data set measures access as straight-line distance from stores. The area outlines are from US Census Bureau TIGER data.</span></p><p> </p><p style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(27, 27, 27);font-family:;"><span style="font-size:12px;">Limited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores, or other sources of healthy and affordable food may make it harder for some people to eat a healthy diet in this country. There are many ways to measure food store access for individuals and for neighborhoods, and many ways to define which areas are low-income and low access—neighborhoods that lack healthy food sources. Most measures and definitions consider at least some of the following indicators of access:</span></p><ul><li><span style="font-size:12px;">Accessibility to sources of healthy food, as measured by distance to a store or by the number of stores in an area;</span></li><li><span style="font-size:12px;">Individual-level resources that may affect accessibility, such as family income or vehicle availability; and</span></li><li><span style="font-size:12px;">Neighborhood-level indicators of resources, such as the average income of the neighborhood and the availability of public transportation.</span></li></ul><p style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(27, 27, 27);font-family:;"><span style="font-size:12px;">In the Food Access Research Atlas, several indicators are available to measure food access along these dimensions. For example, users can choose alternative distance markers to measure low access in a neighborhood, such as the number and share of people more than one-half mile to a supermarket or 1 mile to a supermarket. Users can also view other census-tract-level characteristics that provide context on food access in neighborhoods, such as whether the tract has a high percentage of households far from supermarkets and without vehicles, individuals with low income, or people residing in group quarters.</span></p> |