Food access inequalities in Chinese urban neighborhoods: a case study of the Dalian development zone

Jiaojiao Li, Guobao Song (), Henry Musoke Semakula, Yijie Dou and Shushen Zhang
Additional contact information
Jiaojiao Li: Dalian University of Technology
Guobao Song: Dalian University of Technology
Henry Musoke Semakula: Makerere University
Yijie Dou: Dongbei University of Finance and Economics
Shushen Zhang: Dalian University of Technology

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2019, vol. 11, issue 5, No 7, 1087-1099

Abstract: Abstract Difficulties in accessing food exist in some Chinese cities, and it can be a challenge for residents to buy affordable, good-quality and nutritious fresh foods. This study proposes a residential building-based measure to evaluate food accessibility based on Geographic Information Systems. We used a total of eight types of food retailers and 28 food categories in our analysis and explored whether inequities in access to food existed among neighborhoods with different housing prices in the Dalian Development Zone using Kruskal-Wallis test methods. Our results show that 38% of residents living in 3724 residential buildings required between five and 10 min to access the nearest supermarket, while 10% required more than 20 min. The mean walking accessibility to stores with eggs (10 min) and with milk (10 min) was quicker than that to other types of food stores (14–16 min). In addition, high-wealth neighborhoods had better food accessibility than did low-wealth neighborhoods. However, in comparison to the other studied neighborhoods, those with medium-low-wealth had the highest level of food accessibility. Our results can be used by policymakers to better understand food access in residential areas and to help improve the food environment in Chinese cities.

Keywords: Food accessibility; Public health; Geographic information systems; Urbanization; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-019-00963-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ssefpa:v:11:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s12571-019-00963-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ulture/journal/12571

DOI: 10.1007/s12571-019-00963-6

Access Statistics for this article

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food is currently edited by R.N. Strange

More articles in Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food from Springer, The International Society for Plant Pathology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().