Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-15-2017

Abstract

There has been a great deal of academic material and public policy published on food deserts, however, there still are significant gaps of understanding in regard to the lived experience of those individuals residing within those geographical locations. This study employed a qualitative methodology to elicit the lived experiences of 20 people who are living within a food desert. The findings from this research suggest those residing in food deserts, do not plan their purchases and travel to markets outside of their immediate neighborhoods in search of food products that have quality, variety and lower price points. It was also reported that respondents made purchases online. Implications of this research indicates that government policy must better understand food deserts and design policy that is more effective in helping people attain access to quality food. In addition, we find academics could better understand decision making and motivation under such conditions. Future research could include a more broad-based study in a larger more diverse set of regions within the United States.

Keywords

food deserts, neighborhoods, low income – low access, geographical location, East Harlem/ Harlem, markets, supermarkets, convenience stores, fast food, well-being, health, poor diet, food environment, food insecurity, food security, low-income consumers, Weatherhead School of Management

Rights

© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Department/Center

Design & Innovation

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