Abstract

Hunger, obesity, and diabetes: The geographical clustering of food insecurity, and associated health outcomes utilizing novel prototypes

Ruaa Al-Juboori, PhD, MPH¹, Divya S. Subramaniam , PhD, MPH², Dipti P. Subramaniam, PhD, MPH², Rafal Hamad, BS.pharm³, Ness Sandoval, PhD² (1) The University of Mississippi, (2)Saint Louis University, (3)University of Missouri Kansas City, (4)Al Amiriya general hospital, Iraq

APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo

Background: Limited research has accounted for the association between both geography and racial/ethnic disparities, between food insecurity and obesity rates. Therefore, this study used new prototypes based on plurality and rural-urban continuum to explore the relationship between food insecurity and associated health outcomes.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we created a new prototype using U.S. county data to perform a spatial analysis of food insecurity and obesity using urbanity continuum and plurality (Major racial group). All data sets are publicly available including the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural–Urban Commuting Areas, 2020 US census, and 2020 county health ranking data. Bivariate statistics (Morans I) were created to show the clustering of food insecurity, obesity, diabetes, households without cars, and other sociodemographic factors across urbanity and plurality spectrums.
Results: A total of 3017 counties were included. Clustering of high rates of food insecurity, obesity, diabetes, and households without cars were mainly in South-Eastern counties, with population majority being blacks. Also, there was a similar pattern of spatial clustering of other disadvantaged sociodemographic indicators.
Conclusion: This study provides insights to the high rates of food insecurity and obesity rates in majority Blacks counties, mainly in rural black counties. Future research should consider development of interventions to improve food insecurity and obesity concurrently in rural counties.