Gov't Open Data: Food Deserts

This online post from the American Nutrition Assoc. cites the USDA's definition of a "food desert": "[P]arts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers."

Above is the map they provide generated from data provided by the Dept. of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control. 

This is a very important topic that is ideally portrayed by data visualization (dataviz) in map form.

The USDA Economic Research Service provides a Food Access Research Atlas where you can:

• Create maps showing food access indicators by census tract using different measures and indicators of supermarket accessibility;
• View indicators of food access for selected subpopulations; and
• Download census-tract-level data on food access measures.

They also have created a Food Environment Atlas with the following objectives:

• to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality, and
• to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so.

 Here in Omaha, the local news station reported on the plans of the Omaha Economic Development Corp. to bring fresh produce to North Omaha by constructing a grocery store using recycled shipping containers and starting a farmer's market. 

I was able to use the Food Access Research Atlas to do a quick map of the areas considered to be a food desert in North Omaha.

With this map, the green area corresponds to low income and low access at 1 and 10 miles. (Original Food Desert measure)