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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Cynthia Gordon, PhD¹, Anjali A. Talwalkar, MD, MPH¹, Andrew Goodman, MD, MPH¹, Marnie Purciel², and Robyn Philburn³. (1) East and Central Harlem District Public Health Office, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 158 E. 115th Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10029, 212-360-5980, agoodman@health.nyc.gov, (2) Mailman School of Public Health and Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, 161 W 105th Street., 3FW, New York, NY 10025, (3) Mailman School of Public Health, 722 W 168th Street, New York, NY 10032

The rates of child and adult obesity, as well as diabetes, continue to grow in this country and a disproportionate impact is felt by Black and Latino communities. Policy makers are challenged to find new ways to improve the health of residents in urban communities and these concerns dovetail with current interest among researchers in the ‘built environment' and how it interacts with residents' health. Increasingly, evidence suggests that the neighborhood food environment influences the nutritional and caloric intake of residents and their ability to avoid diseases like obesity and diabetes. In order to inform program and policy planning, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene conducted a survey to understand characteristics of the food environment that lead to health disparities among poorer and wealthier neighborhoods. Every food establishment and restaurant in the District Public Health Office area of East and Central Harlem and a sample of the Upper East Side were surveyed (n=1178) and the availability, pricing, placement and marketing of healthy and unhealthy foods, beverages, alcohol and low-fat milk were documented for a range of vendor types such as supermarkets and bodegas; in addition restaurants were counted and categorized. The availability of healthy and unhealthy foods, as well as pricing, placement and marketing were compared across types of vendors (supermarkets vs. bodegas) as well as across neighborhoods. Finally, we examined the spatial distribution of healthy food access relative to sociodemographic variables, schools, housing developments and access to transportation. Implications for policy recommendations based on these data will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Learners will be able to describe the process to complete a food vendor survey to assess the neighborhood food environment.
• Learners will be able to discuss cross-neighborhood differences in the food environment
• Learners will understand the importance of viewing data spatially when appropriate.

Keywords: Food and Nutrition, Health Disparities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation