Monday, July 27, 2009

In Seattle: "The Search for Affordable Nutrient Rich Foods"

A new study (.pdf) from King County (Seattle), Washington, looks into some of the leading concerns in national discussions of local food retail access -- (1) whether supermarkets are found in poor neighborhoods, and (2) whether food prices are higher in poor neighborhoods. Nadia Mahmud, Pablo Monsivais, and Adam Drewnowski find supermarkets in neighborhoods of all income levels. For most chains, outlets were found in both poor and rich neighborhoods. Each chain offered approximately the same prices in a store sampled from a poor neighborhood and a matched store sampled from a rich neighborhood. Yet, the chains differed from each other, with some chains having much higher prices in both kinds of neighborhood. The paper names the chains and has nice maps and tables of actual prices.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Parke:

    Great to see the research you've highlighted. Your presence is missed at this year's Agric and Applied Economics Association meeting in Milwaukee. There have been lots of research presentations in the areas of food safety, the economics of diet and health, and other nutrition topics. Amongst AAEA economists plenty of interest exists in research on economic methods in evaluating food safety risks and in targeting interventions as well as in the area of behavioral economics and dietary behaviors.

    I love the post you have below with pictures and the food system.

    Keep it up!
    Paul McNamara

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