Food Deserts in British Cities, 2000-2001

The aims of the project were:<br> <li>to provide an evaluation of the nature of 'food deserts' in British cities as a contribution to the social exclusion and health inequalities debates and their policy implications;</li><br> <li>to design and conduct, within one strategically chosen area of poor retail access in Leeds, a major 'before/after' (baseline and follow-up) study of the impact of the opening of a large new food store on a group of low-income households.</li><br> <br> The study required a major and potentially extremely difficult exercise in social survey research, involving a two-wave food diary/household questionnaire survey, focused on the kind of deprived urban area known to pose enormous problems regarding response and attrition rates for social survey research. The survey design<br> consisted of two waves: <br> <li>pre-intervention (June/July 2000), approximately five months 'before' the opening of a new supermarket food store in November 2000, and</li><br> <li>post-intervention (June/July 2001), seven/eight months 'after' the opening of the new store.</li><br> Each wave consisted of:<br> <li>a seven-day food consumption diary/check list - the respondent completed this but interviewer placed and collected it;</li><br> <li>a wide-ranging, interviewer-administered household questionnaire. <br> <br> The diary and questionnaire were completed, as in the National Food Survey, by the person primarily responsible for the domestic food arrangements of the household.<br> <br> The survey fieldwork was contracted to and completed by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS). The survey was designed by the Southampton research team with technical advice from TNS and specialists at the team's industrial partner (J. Sainsbury plc). Survey instruments and methods were piloted in February 2000, and subsequently modified and refined.<br> <br> Targets of 1000 respondents in Wave 1 and 600 in Wave 2 were set, in an attempt to ensure sufficient statistical power for the assessment of dietary change across the survey waves. Intense efforts were made by the research team to minimize sample attrition between waves of survey and hence reduce attrition bias problems in the subsequent analysis; monetary incentives (in the form of non-food retail shopping vouchers) were structured to maximise recruitment in Wave 1 of the survey, and sustain retention of respondents into Wave 2.<br>