USDA -Food Access

Limited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores, or other sources of healthy and affordable food may make it harder for some Americans to eat a healthy diet. Expanding the availability of nutritious and affordable food by developing and equipping grocery stores, small retailers, corner markets and farmers’ markets in communities with limited access is an important part of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. There are many ways to define which areas are considered "food deserts" and many ways to measure food store access for individuals and for neighborhoods. Most measures and definitions take into account at least some of the following indicators of access: Accessibility to sources of healthy food, as measured by distance to a store or by the number of stores in an area.Individual-level resources that may affect accessibility, such as family income or vehicle availability.Neighborhood-level indicators of resources, such as the average income of the neighborhood and the availability of public transportation. In the Food Access Research Atlas, several options are available to describe food access along these dimensions. The Food Access Research Atlas presents a spatial overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility. It provides food access data for populations within census tracts and offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes. This Atlas can be used to create maps showing food access indicators by census tract using different measures and indicators of supermarket accessibility. It can be used to compare food access measures based on 2015 data with the previous 2010 measures, view indicators of food access for selected subpopulations, and download census-tract-level data on food access measures.

若难以抵达超市、大型综合超市、杂货店或其他健康平价食品供应点，部分美国民众将更难维持健康膳食。针对食品获取受限的社区，通过新建并配套杂货店、小型零售门店、便民市场与农贸市场来扩充营养平价食品的供给，是《健康食品融资倡议》（Healthy Food Financing Initiative）的核心举措之一。目前学界存在多种界定“食品荒漠（food desert）”的方式，以及针对个体与社区的食品店铺可及性评估方法。多数评估指标与界定标准至少会涵盖以下几类可及性相关维度：一是健康食品供应点的可达性，可通过至店铺的距离或区域内店铺数量来衡量；二是个体层面的资源禀赋，例如家庭收入或私家车拥有情况；三是社区层面的资源指标，例如社区平均收入与公共交通覆盖情况。在《食品获取研究地图集》（Food Access Research Atlas）中，可通过多种维度来刻画食品可及性状况。该地图集依托不同的超市可达性评估指标，呈现了低收入普查区域与其他普查区域的食品可及性指标空间分布概览。其提供了普查区域内人口的食品可及性数据，并开放了普查区域级别的食品可及性数据集，可供社区规划或学术研究使用。使用者可依托不同的超市可达性评估指标与维度，绘制基于普查区域的食品可及性指标地图；还可对比基于2015年数据与2010年旧版数据的食品可及性评估结果，查看选定亚群体的食品可及性指标，并下载普查区域级别的食品可及性评估数据集。