City-Level Travel Time and Individual Dietary Consumption in Latin American Cities: Results from the SALURBAL Study

Joanna M. N. Guimarães, Binod Acharya, Kari Moore, Nancy López-Olmedo, Mariana Carvalho de Menezes, Dalia Stern, Amélia Augusta de Lima Friche, Xize Wang, Xavier Delclòs-Alió, Daniel A. Rodriguez, Olga Lucia Sarmiento and Leticia de Oliveira Cardoso ()
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Joanna M. N. Guimarães: Epidemiology Department, National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21041-210, Brazil
Binod Acharya: Urban Health Collaborative, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Kari Moore: Urban Health Collaborative, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Nancy López-Olmedo: Population Health Research Center, National Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca 62100, Mexico
Mariana Carvalho de Menezes: Department of Clinical and Social Nutrition, Federal University of Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto 35400-000, Brazil
Dalia Stern: CONACyT-Population Health Research Center, National Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca 62100, Mexico
Amélia Augusta de Lima Friche: Department of Speech, Language and Audiology Sciences, Observatory for Urban Health in Belo Horizonte, School of Medicine, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 30310-692, Brazil
Xize Wang: Department of Real Estate, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245, Singapore
Xavier Delclòs-Alió: Research Group on Territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies (GRATET), Department of Geography, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43480 Vila-seca, Catalonia, Spain
Daniel A. Rodriguez: Institute of Transportation Studies, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Olga Lucia Sarmiento: Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota 111711, Colombia
Leticia de Oliveira Cardoso: Epidemiology Department, National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21041-210, Brazil

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-11

Abstract: There is limited empirical evidence on how travel time affects dietary patterns, and even less in Latin American cities (LACs). Using data from 181 LACs, we investigated whether longer travel times at the city level are associated with lower consumption of vegetables and higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and if this association differs by city size. Travel time was measured as the average city-level travel time during peak hours and city-level travel delay time was measured as the average increase in travel time due to congestion on the street network during peak hours. Vegetables and sugar-sweetened beverages consumption were classified according to the frequency of consumption in days/week (5–7: “frequent”, 2–4: “medium”, and ≤1: “rare”). We estimate multilevel ordinal logistic regression modeling for pooled samples and stratified by city size. Higher travel time (Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.65; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.49–0.87) and delay time (OR = 0.57; CI 0.34–0.97) were associated with lower odds of frequent vegetable consumption. For a rare SSB consumption, we observed an inverse association with the delay time (OR = 0.65; CI 0.44–0.97). Analysis stratified by city size show that these associations were significant only in larger cities. Our results suggest that travel time and travel delay can be potential urban determinants of food consumption.

Keywords: urban health; mobility systems; city level travel time; diet (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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