title: The intersection of neighborhood racial segregation, poverty, and urbanicity and its impact on food store availability in the United States.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Food store availability may determine the quality of food consumed by residents. Neighborhood racial residential segregation, poverty, and urbanicity independently affect food store availability, but the interactions among them have not been studied.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine availability of supermarkets, grocery stores, and convenience stores in US census tracts according to neighborhood racial/ethnic composition, poverty, and urbanicity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from 2000 US Census and 2001 InfoUSA food store data were combined and multivariate negative binomial regression models employed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As neighborhood poverty increased, supermarket availability decreased and grocery and convenience stores increased, regardless of race/ethnicity. At equal levels of poverty, Black census tracts had the fewest supermarkets, White tracts had the most, and integrated tracts were intermediate. Hispanic census tracts had the most grocery stores at all levels of poverty. In rural census tracts, neither racial composition nor level of poverty predicted supermarket availability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood poverty are independently associated with food store availability. Poor predominantly Black neighborhoods face a double jeopardy with the most limited access to quality food and should be prioritized for interventions. These associations are not seen in rural areas which suggest that interventions should not be universal but developed locally.
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA; Department of Community and Public Health, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, 525 N Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. Electronic address: kbower1@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Kelly M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Bower
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA; Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.
authors.forename: Roland J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Thorpe
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA; Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rohde
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA; Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.
authors.forename: Darrell J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Gaskin
mesh_terms: D016010:Binomial Distribution; D019352:Censuses; D003132:Commerce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019649:Food Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011204:Poverty Areas; D063505:Racism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population
keywords: Concentrated poverty; Food store availability; Health disparity; Neighborhood; Racial residential segregation