Assessing retail fruit and vegetable availability in urban and rural underserved communities.

INTRODUCTION: Fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) are important parts of a healthy, balanced diet. Consumption of F&Vs is low among residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. We investigated and compared retail F&V availability in urban and rural underserved communities in New York State. METHODS: All food retail stores and farmers' markets (N = 263) in downtown Albany and in Columbia and Greene counties in New York State were visited and surveyed. Food stores were classified as F&V stores if they stocked more than the minimum varieties of fresh F&Vs defined by this study and as fruit-for-snack stores if they had ready-to-eat fruits only. Store density per 10,000 residents was calculated as a standardized measure of F&V availability. Adjustment weights were created to incorporate store size and business hours into the analysis. RESULTS: The weight-adjusted density (per 10,000 residents) of F&V stores was 4.6 in Albany's minority neighborhood (reference category), 11.4 in Albany's racially mixed neighborhood (P = .01), 7.8 in Columbia and Greene counties' rural community (P = .10), and 9.8 in Columbia and Greene counties' small-town community (P = .02). Significant differences were not found in fruit-for-snack stores, which ranged from 2.0 per 10,000 in the mixed neighborhood to 3.4 per 10,000 in the rural community. CONCLUSION: The urban minority neighborhood had the most barriers to fresh F&Vs in retail outlets, even when compared with the rural community. The low availability of retail F&Vs in the minority neighborhood was attributed to the lack of supermarkets and not the absolute lack of food stores. Public health intervention strategies to increase retail F&V availability in urban minority neighborhoods may aid in mitigating these disparities.

Low-fat milk and high-fiber bread availability in food stores in urban and rural communities.

As part of the Albany Prevention Research Center's Core Project to understand environmental influences on a healthy lifestyle, all food stores in downtown Albany (N=79) and rural Columbia and Greene counties (N=177) in New York State were visited and surveyed for their availability of low-fat milk and high-fiber bread. Stores in the rural community were significantly (P < .01) more likely to stock low-fat milk (71%) and high-fiber bread (55%) than stores in Albany (40% and 33%, respectively). The rural community also had a significantly higher population ratio of "healthy milk & bread (M&B) stores" (carrying both items) than Albany (7.6 vs 3.9 per 10,000 residents). Urban healthy M&B stores were more likely to be a convenience store and accept food stamps, whereas rural healthy M&B stores were more likely to be a gas station store and offer off-street parking. Multiple logistic regression analysis found that healthy M&B stores were inversely associated with proportions of ethnic/racial minorities in the census block group (CBG). More than 80 percent of minorities in Albany resided in a CBG without a healthy M&B store. Urban residents in predominantly minority neighborhoods were most likely to encounter environmental barriers to obtain healthy staple food, and intervention should be tailored to aid this population.