Are Healthy Foods Affordable? The Past, Present, and Future of Measuring Food Access Using Least-Cost Diets

William Masters, Jessica K. Wallingford (), Rachel D. Gilbert (), Elena M. Martinez (), Yan Bai, Kristina Sokourenko and Anna W. Herforth
Additional contact information
Jessica K. Wallingford: Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Rachel D. Gilbert: Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Elena M. Martinez: Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Yan Bai: Development Data Group, The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA
Kristina Sokourenko: Department of Global Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Anna W. Herforth: Food Prices for Nutrition Project, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2025, vol. 17, issue 1, 65-84

Abstract: This review describes the history, current practice, and prospects for measuring a population's access to foods for health using the lowest-cost locally available items, in contrast to quantities actually chosen, so as to distinguish between unaffordability of healthy diets and other causes of malnutrition. Retail prices, cost per day, and affordability relative to earnings have been used to measure food access for centuries, driving early definitions of poverty and income thresholds for subsistence. Substitution between items based on food composition was introduced soon after nutrient requirements were quantified, leading to the development of linear programming and other diet modeling techniques. This article describes how and why modern diet cost and affordability metrics have been adopted by international organizations, government agencies, and researchers to monitor food markets and guide intervention, concluding with new frontiers for research on other factors limiting access to healthy diets, such as cooking costs and time use, and factors that cause displacement of low-cost healthy diets by other foods.

Keywords: nutritional value; food composition; diet quality; price indexes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I32 Q11 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-121523-015144
Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anr:reseco:v:17:y:2025:p:65-84

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.annualreviews.org/action/ecommerce

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-121523-015144

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Annual Review of Resource Economics from Annual Reviews Annual Reviews 4139 El Camino Way Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by http://www.annualreviews.org ().