Longitudinal Associations between Change in Neighborhood Social Disorder and Change in Food Swamps in an Urban Setting.

ABSTRACT: Few studies have examined how neighborhood contextual features may influence the food outlet mix. We evaluated the relationship between changes in neighborhood crime and changes in the food environment, namely the relative density of unhealthy (or intermediate) food outlets out of total food outlets, or food swamp score, in Baltimore City from 2000 to 2012, using neighborhood fixed-effects linear regression models. Comparing neighborhoods to themselves over time, each unit increase in crime rate was associated with an increase in the food swamp score (b = 0.13; 95% CI, -0.00017 to 0.25). The association with food swamp score was in the same direction for violent crime and in the inverse direction for arrests related to juvenile crimes (proxy of reduced crime), but did not reach statistical

SUBMITTER: Mui Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5359167 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature