Ecological study of the association between socioeconomic inequality and food deserts and swamps around schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Andretti, Bernardo
Cardoso, Letícia Oliveira
Honório, Olivia Souza
de Castro Junior, Paulo César Pereira
Tavares, Letícia Ferreira
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background
Previous research suggests that unhealthy community food environments around schools contribute to unhealthy eating habits and negative health outcomes among the youth. However, little is known about how socioeconomic inequalities in those community food environments are associated with food deserts and food swamps across schools’ neighborhoods.
Methods
An ecological study was carried out in all 3,159 public and private schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Three measures of socioeconomic inequality were evaluated: per capita income, segregation index and deprivation index. The community school food environment was analyzed by metrics of food swamps and food deserts.
Results
Food deserts and food swamps were simultaneously more prevalent in neighborhoods of the lowest income, high deprivation, and high segregation. Spatial socioeconomic disparities at the neighborhoods of schools were associated with food deserts and food swamps in Rio de Janeiro.
Conclusions
Our results point to a spatial socioeconomic inequality of establishments that sell food around schools in a Brazilian metropolis, indicating that the areas of greatest deprivation of food services are also the areas with the worst socioeconomic characteristics.
Previous research suggests that unhealthy community food environments around schools contribute to unhealthy eating habits and negative health outcomes among the youth. However, little is known about how socioeconomic inequalities in those community food environments are associated with food deserts and food swamps across schools’ neighborhoods.
Methods
An ecological study was carried out in all 3,159 public and private schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Three measures of socioeconomic inequality were evaluated: per capita income, segregation index and deprivation index. The community school food environment was analyzed by metrics of food swamps and food deserts.
Results
Food deserts and food swamps were simultaneously more prevalent in neighborhoods of the lowest income, high deprivation, and high segregation. Spatial socioeconomic disparities at the neighborhoods of schools were associated with food deserts and food swamps in Rio de Janeiro.
Conclusions
Our results point to a spatial socioeconomic inequality of establishments that sell food around schools in a Brazilian metropolis, indicating that the areas of greatest deprivation of food services are also the areas with the worst socioeconomic characteristics.
Date Issued
2023-01-17
Date Acceptance
2023-01-05
Citation
BMC Public Health, 2023, 23
ISSN
1471-2458
Publisher
BMC
Journal / Book Title
BMC Public Health
Volume
23
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
120
Date Publish Online
2023-01-17