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New Insights Into Grocery Store Visits Among East Los Angeles Residents Using Mobility Data
Abstract:
<p>Grocery stores are a key source of affordable, healthy foods. Neighborhoods with poor access to these stores are often labeled "food deserts". However, this concept provides limited information on where people do their grocery shopping. In this study, we employed spatially aggregated mobility data, generated from mobile phone locations in 2021, to investigate patterns of grocery store visits among residents east and northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, 60% of which had previously been designated as "food deserts". Further, we examined whether store visits varied with neighborhood socio-demographic and grocery store accessibility. Our findings revealed that only 15% of these visits were within home census tracts, and 44% were within home and neighboring tracts. We also found that people were likely to visit grocery stores more frequently and visited more different grocery stores when they lived in neighborhoods with higher percentages of Hispanics/Latinos, renters, and foreign-born residents, higher poverty levels, and a greater number of grocery stores. This research highlights the utility of mobility data in elucidating grocery store access, use, and potential barriers, as well as the limitations of using geographically constrained metrics like food deserts.</p>
Keywords: activity spaces, food environment, grocery shopping, mobile phone data, modifiable areal unit problems (MAUPs)
Authors:
Mengya Xu, University of Southern California; Submitting Author / Primary Presenter
John P Wilson, University of Southern California; Co-Author (this author will not present)
Kayla de la Haye, University of Southern California; Co-Author (this author will not present)
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New Insights Into Grocery Store Visits Among East Los Angeles Residents Using Mobility Data
Category
In-Person Paper Abstract