Community-Level Factors Associated With Geographic Access to Food Retailers Offering Nutrition Incentives in Chicago, Illinois
ORIGINAL RESEARCH — Volume 19 — February 10, 2022
PEER REVIEWED
Many Link Match retailers were located on the city’s south and west sides. Of the 57 retailers, 39 (68.4%) were in majority non-Hispanic Black census tracts, and 5 (8.8%) were in majority Hispanic census tracts; 44 (77.2%) were in located in census tracts with a median household income lower than the city’s median in 2018 ($55,295).
Figure 1.
Link Match retailers mapped onto 3 sociodemographic variables: median annual household income in 2018, percentage of the population that was non-Hispanic Black in 2018, and percentage of population that was Hispanic in 2018, by census tract (N = 801), Chicago, Illinois. Map created in ArcGIS software version 10.8.1 (Esri). Data source: US Census Bureau (14).
The average violent crime rate was 2.7 (SD, 3.1) events per 1,000 census tract residents. Census tracts, on average, had less than 1 grocery store per 1,000 tract residents, and the average National Walkability Index score was 12.5 (SD, 2.3).
Figure 2.
Link Match retailer locations mapped to 3 environmental variables: number of grocery stores per capita in 2020, violent crime rate in 2018, and the National Walkability Index in 2017, by census tract (N = 801), Chicago, Illinois. Violent crime and grocery store location data were obtained from the Chicago Data Portal (16). Violent crime rate was defined as the number of police-reported incidents of homicide, armed robbery, and aggravated assault per 1,000 census tract residents. Per capita grocery stores was defined as the number of grocery stores per 1,000 census tract residents. Data on walkability were obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency; the higher the National Walkability Index score (scale, 0–20), the more walkable the census tract. Map created in ArcGIS software version 10.8.1 (Esri).
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