Although neighborhood-level access to food differs by sociodemographic factors, a majority of research on neighborhoods and food access has used a single construct of neighborhood context, such as income or race. Therefore, the many interrelated built environment and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods obscure relationships between neighborhood factors and food access. The objective of this study was to account for the many interrelated characteristics of food-related neighborhood environments and examine the association between neighborhood type and relative availability of sit-down restaurants and supermarkets. Using cluster analyses with multiple measures of neighborhood characteristics (e.g., population density, mix of land use, and sociodemographic factors) we identified six neighborhood types in 1993 in the Twin Cities Region, Minnesota. We then used mixed effects regression models to estimate differences in the relative availability of sit-down restaurants and supermarkets in 1993, 2001, and 2011 across the six neighborhood types. We defined six types of neighborhoods that existed in 1993, namely, urban core, inner city, urban, aging suburb, high-income suburb, and suburban edge. Between 1993 and 2011, inner city neighborhoods experienced a greater increase in the percent of sit-down restaurants compared with urban core, urban, and aging suburbs. Differences in the percent of sit-down restaurants between inner city and aging suburbs, high-income suburbs and suburban edge neighborhoods increased between 1993 and 2011. Similarly, aging suburb neighborhoods had a greater percent of supermarkets compared with urban and high-income suburb neighborhoods in 2001 and 2011, but not in 1993, suggesting a more varied distribution of food stores across neighborhoods over time. Thus, the classification of neighborhood type based on sociodemographic and built environment characteristics resulted in a complex and increasingly varied distribution of restaurants and food stores. The temporal increase in the relative availability of sit-down restaurants in inner cities after accounting for all restaurants might be partly related to a higher proportion of residents who eat-away-from-home, which is associated with higher calorie and fat intake.

中文翻译：

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一种在研究与坐下餐厅和超市可用性相关性的研究中估计邻里特征的方法


尽管社区层面的食物获取情况因社会人口因素而异，但大多数关于社区和食物获取的研究都使用单一的社区背景结构，例如收入或种族。因此，社区的许多相互关联的建筑环境和社会人口特征掩盖了社区因素与食物获取之间的关系。本研究的目的是考虑与食品相关的邻里环境的许多相互关联的特征，并研究邻里类型与坐下餐厅和超市的相对可用性之间的关联。 1993 年，我们利用聚类分析和多种邻里特征衡量标准（例如人口密度、土地利用组合和社会人口因素）确定了明尼苏达州双城地区的六种邻里类型。然后，我们使用混合效应回归模型来估计 1993 年、2001 年和 2011 年六种社区类型中餐厅和超市相对可用性的差异。我们定义了1993年存在的六种类型的社区，即城市核心、内城、城市、老龄化郊区、高收入郊区和郊区边缘。 1993 年至 2011 年间，与城市核心区、城市和老龄化郊区相比，内城社区的堂食餐厅比例增幅更大。 1993 年至 2011 年间，内城区和老龄化郊区、高收入郊区和郊区边缘社区之间的堂食餐厅比例差异有所增加。 同样，2001 年和 2011 年，与城市和高收入郊区相比，老龄化郊区的超市比例更高，但 1993 年则不然，这表明随着时间的推移，食品店在各个社区的分布更加多样化。因此，基于社会人口统计和建筑环境特征的社区类型分类导致餐馆和食品店的分布变得复杂且日益多样化。考虑到所有餐馆后，内城区堂食餐馆相对供应量的暂时增加可能部分与较高比例的居民外出就餐有关，而这又与较高的卡路里和脂肪摄入量有关。