Introduction

Health problems such as obesity and related illnesses have been attributed to the lack of both spatial and economic access to healthy food. Even though access to healthy food in urban areas has been widely studied, access to healthy food in rural areas has not received much attention to date. Rural residents usually face similar accessibility challenges as urban populations but at a greater magnitude. The lack of access to reliable transportation in rural areas acts as a barrier to accessing healthy food, especially for individuals that might not have access to an automobile.

Methodology

This paper uses a cost-based accessibility measure and estimates spatial econometric models to identify the differences between healthy food accessibility in rural and urban areas considering multiple transportation modes available in those areas. Furthermore, the paper explores the relationship between healthy food accessibility and the characteristics of the built environment that can be used to advise planning decisions and policy. Four study areas in Indiana were selected to demonstrate the study methodology.

Results

Both the location of healthy food providers and infrastructure that allows access by different modes are spatially clustered. Urban area residents incur a lower average cost to reach healthy food, especially when driving and walking are considered, compared to rural areas. The spatial models' results suggested that built environment characteristics, especially land-use characteristics, influence the cost to reach healthy food providers in urban areas, regardless of the mode.

Conclusions

The solution to facilitate access to healthy food providers is not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, transportation innovations such as mobile markets, ridesharing, drone delivery, and autonomous delivery services can serve to bring closer healthy food to the population that cannot access it by their current means. This paper's methodology involves publicly available data that allow for easy replication by any planning agency.

中文翻译：

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城市和农村地区健康食品的获取：实证分析

介绍

肥胖和相关疾病等健康问题归因于缺乏获得健康食品的空间和经济途径。尽管已经对城市地区的健康食品获取进行了广泛的研究，但迄今为止，农村地区的健康食品获取并未受到太多关注。农村居民通常面临与城市人口类似的可达性挑战，但规模更大。农村地区缺乏可靠的交通是获取健康食品的障碍，特别是对于可能无法使用汽车的个人。

方法

本文使用基于成本的可及性措施并估计空间计量经济模型，以识别农村和城市地区健康食品可及性之间的差异，考虑到这些地区可用的多种交通方式。此外，本文探讨了健康食品的可及性与可用于为规划决策和政策提供建议的建筑环境特征之间的关系。选择了印第安纳州的四个研究区域来展示研究方法。

结果

健康食品供应商的位置和允许不同模式访问的基础设施在空间上都是集群的。与农村地区相比，城市地区居民获得健康食品的平均成本较低，尤其是在考虑驾车和步行时。空间模型的结果表明，无论采用何种模式，建筑环境特征，尤其是土地利用特征，都会影响到城市地区健康食品供应商的成本。

结论

促进获得健康食品供应商的解决方案不是一刀切的方法。然而，移动市场、拼车、无人机送货和自动送货服务等交通创新可以为目前无法获得健康食品的人群提供更接近的健康食品。本文的方法涉及公开可用的数据，任何规划机构都可以轻松复制这些数据。