Applied Geography ( IF 4.732 ) Pub Date : 2021-07-09 , DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102517 Armita Kar 1 , Yasuyuki Motoyama 2 , Andre L Carrel 2, 3 , Harvey J Miller 1, 4 , Huyen T K Le 1
Inequality to food access has always been a serious problem, yet it became even more critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated social inequality and reshaped essential travel. This study provides a holistic view of spatio-temporal changes in food access based on observed travel data for all grocery shopping trips in Columbus, Ohio, during and after the state-wide stay-at-home period. We estimated the decline and recovery patterns of store visits during the pandemic to identify the key socio-economic and built environment determinants of food shopping patterns. The results show a disparity: during the lockdown, store visits to dollar stores declined the least, while visits to big-box stores declined the most and recovered the fastest. Visits to stores in low-income areas experienced smaller changes even during the lockdown period. A higher percentage of low-income customers was associated with lower store visits during the lockdown period. Furthermore, stores with a higher percentage of white customers declined the least and recovered faster during the reopening phase. Our study improves the understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on food access disparities and business performance. It highlights the role of COVID-19 and similar disruptions on exposing underlying social problems in the US.
中文翻译:
COVID-19 加剧了食物获取的不平等
食物获取不平等一直是一个严重的问题,但在 COVID-19 大流行期间变得更加严重,这加剧了社会不平等并重塑了基本旅行。这项研究根据俄亥俄州哥伦布市在全州居家期间和之后观察到的所有杂货店购物旅行的旅行数据,提供了食物获取的时空变化的整体视图。我们估计了大流行期间商店访问量的下降和恢复模式,以确定食品购物模式的关键社会经济和建筑环境决定因素。结果显示存在差异:在封锁期间,一元店的客流量下降最少,而大型商店的客流量下降最多,恢复最快。即使在封锁期间,低收入地区商店的访问量变化也较小。在锁定期间,较高比例的低收入客户与较低的商店访问量有关。此外,在重新开业阶段,白人顾客比例较高的商店下降最少,恢复得更快。我们的研究提高了对 COVID-19 危机对食品获取差异和业务绩效影响的理解。它强调了 COVID-19 和类似破坏在暴露美国潜在社会问题方面的作用。