title: Conceptualizing and comparing neighborhood and activity space measures for food environment research.
abstract: Greater accessibility to geospatial technologies has led to a surge of spatialized public health research, much of which has focused on food environments. The purpose of this study was to analyze differing spatial measures of exposure to supermarkets and farmers׳ markets among women of reproductive age in eastern North Carolina. Exposure measures were derived using participant-defined neighborhoods, investigator-defined road network neighborhoods, and activity spaces incorporating participants׳ time space behaviors. Results showed that mean area for participant-defined neighborhoods (0.04 sq. miles) was much smaller than 2.0 mile road network neighborhoods (3.11 sq. miles) and activity spaces (26.36 sq. miles), and that activity spaces provided the greatest market exposure. The traditional residential neighborhood concept may not be particularly relevant for all places. Time-space approaches capturing activity space may be more relevant, particularly if integrated with mixed methods strategies.
authors.affiliation: Banpu Endowed Chair, 3694 West Pine Mall, Center for Sustainability, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO 63108, United States. Electronic address: crawfordtw@slu.edu.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Crawford
authors.affiliation: East Carolina University, Department of Public Health, 600 Moye Blvd, MS 660, Greenville, NC 27834, United States. Electronic address: jilcotts@ecu.edu.
authors.forename: Stephanie B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Jilcott Pitts
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Nutrition Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States. Electronic address: mcguirtj@live.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Jared T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: McGuirt
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States. Electronic address: jato@med.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Thomas C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Keyserling
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health Director, Center for Health Promotion, Disease Prevention University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 7426, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7426, United States. Electronic address: alice_ammerman@unc.edu.
authors.forename: Alice S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Ammerman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004779:Environment Design; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008297:Male; D009657:North Carolina; D009765:Obesity; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Activity space; Food environment; GIS; Neighborhood