Fazzino | Faculty Fellow Pilot Project

Project Title

Food industry practices, food access, and dietary behaviors

Project Leader

Tera Fazzino, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology; Associate Director, Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment

Project Summary

Food insecurity is a major public health crisis that disproportionately impacts women, particularly women from racial/ethnic minoritized communities, women with children, and older women. Individuals who experience food insecurity often reside in food environments that have limited availability of fresh foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables) and that have wide availability of hyper-palatable and ultra-processed foods that are convenient to consume and difficult to stop eating. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) tracks food insecurity across the US and has identified census tracts that have low food access and low income (LILA) as being particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Most prior research has focused on the lack of grocery stores in LILA tracts as being the main issue limiting healthy food access, under the assumption that grocery stores provide healthier food options. However, preliminary research has identified discrepancies in the offerings of fresh foods vs hyper-palatable foods (HPF) in grocery stores located in low vs high food access regions, with grocery stores in LILA areas offering more HPF and fewer fresh foods relative to the same stores in higher access regions. Thus, individuals residing in LILA tracts may disproportionately encounter HPF when shopping for food relative to individuals not living in LILA tracts. Given this inequity, it is also important to contextualize the food purchasing behavior of households living in LILA tracts. No prior work has examined how residence in a LILA tract may impact HPF purchasing behavior. Finally, federal assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are critical resources for families experiencing food insecurity and SNAP may help modify the effects of living in a low food access region on HPF purchasing behavior; however this has not been tested. 

The purpose of the proposed study is to examine 1) whether HPF are disproportionately offered in different types of food outlets (grocery, superstore, dollar, and convenience) in USDA-designated low income low access tracts vs higher income/access tracts; 2) how residence in a low access low income tract may impact household HPF purchasing; and 3) whether SNAP participation modifies the impact of residence in a low access low income tract on household HPF purchasing.