Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Documenting the Food Environment and Improving Access to Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Characteristics of the food environment have demonstrated associations with dietary behavior and body weight and offer great potential for policy, systems, and environmental initiatives targeting obesity prevention. The current study is part of the West Virginia Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) Initiative. A key goal of the project is to increase consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) by improving access. Baseline data established the FFV outlets throughout the CPPW 6-county region. Each outlet was geo-coded and merged with Census data at the tract level using QGIS. Within the region, census tracts varied greatly in population density (13 to 6120 persons per square mile), poverty rate (6% to 47%), and percent elderly (9.6% to 26%). Eight farmers markets, 33 grocery stores, 6 produce markets, and 85 convenience stores were located in the 6-county region. Many of the grocery stores were located in the most densely populated areas and farmers markets were often located in close proximity to grocery stores. Using tools to measure as the crow flies distances, many of the more remote locations within the region were observed to be 9-12 miles from a grocery store; greater accessibility was observed for convenience stores, but only 8% sold FFVs. Maps of the baseline food environment data are being shared with policy makers to identify strategies to improve FFV access, particularly in high poverty areas. Current initiatives to improve FFV access will also be discussed.