‘'Dodging guns and hunger": How elderly African-Americans negotiate living healthy in unhealthy neighborhoods

Literature on neighborhood food environments (NFE) and healthy food acquisition practices of low-income urban dwellers largely points to disparate measures of physical availability, accessibility and quality of healthy food options in grocery stores. This body of work expands our understanding of NFE characteristics; however, it provides limited insight into how residents of low-income communities, specifically the elderly, navigate NFE to make healthy food choices in the context of inadequate transportation systems, community-level violence, and food insecurity. A mixed-method design study in three distinct neighborhoods in Newark, NJ, characterized the NFE and interviewed residents to gauge interaction between food environments and other factors that guide healthy food choice. Findings from focus group interviews are presented. A total of ten focus groups (four from a pilot study) were conducted with elderly African American (n=88). Grounded Theory methods guided data generation and analysis. Through iterative and cyclical process, data was subjected to multiple waves of analysis. Member checking was conducted at each stage and the topic guides were retooled to reflect learned information from preceding interviews. Findings revealed significant issues the elderly contends with regularly to “survive” the “hostile environments” in which they live. While issues “hunger”, “fear” and “isolation” overwhelmingly marked their lived experiences, participants also discussed “strategies of resilience” and "lifelines" used to overcome daily obstacles. This work draws attention to the significance of qualitative methods for illuminating the complex dynamics associated with social and physical environments in promoting healthy living among vulnerable groups.