An Ethnic Spring in the Food Desert? How State Policy Affects Food Environments and Business Entrepreneurship.

本研究考察了国家层面的政策如何改善或加剧了美国食品安全、食品获取和食品企业所有权方面的制度化不平等。2018年，估计有九分之一的美国人（3700万美国人，其中包括1100多万儿童）处于粮食不安全状态。COVID-19大流行的爆发加剧了美国的粮食不安全状况。在非裔美国人、拉丁裔和移民社区中，粮食不安全状况较高，导致这些社区出现严重的慢性病患病率。2019年，美国六分之一的少数族裔居民也生活在零售杂货店可用性和可及性有限的社区。然而，截至2020年，近五分之一的美国企业为少数族裔所有，其中一部分企业通过提供零售杂货和餐饮服务，为社区的食品环境做出了贡献。该项目考察了两个广泛的研究问题，这些问题与构成社区粮食环境的粮食安全、粮食获取和食品企业所有权相结合。第一个问题是：国家和地方政策在美国食品环境中的作用是什么？此外，州和地方粮食政策如何影响个人粮食安全和粮食获取？这项研究的广泛影响是多方面的。这些努力将发展学术、机构和社区伙伴关系，将政治学、公共事务和应用经济学研究联系起来，从而重新构想粮食系统研究，使不同的利益相关者不再处于边缘地位，而是将其纳入现有的政治、经济和粮食系统。此外，这项研究还将揭示美国各州食品政策中存在的种族、民族和出生地差异。该调查将采用两部分混合方法来回答与各州食物环境变化有关的研究问题。第一部分将把数据汇编成一个新的数据集，以了解食品政策对州和县一级食品环境的影响，以及食品环境对个人的影响。第二部分采用定性方法，在加利福尼亚州、印第安纳州、缅因州、纽约州和德克萨斯州的城市、郊区和农村社区进行研究访谈，征求关于移民社区和有色人种社区如何看待他们的食品环境、食品商业创业机会和现有食品政策的开放式反馈。该项目将与社区伙伴合作，在五个战略选择的研究地点共同创建、传播和分析访谈工具及其结果。这些深入的研究访谈将突出国家政策如何塑造个人态度和获取途径。最后，该项目将根据定性访谈工具的结果收集县级数据集，以调查居民和企业家如何与地方和国家官僚机构及其当地食品环境进行互动。这项调查将解释州一级的决策（政策和支出）如何与个人和当地食品环境质量的变化显著相关。最重要的是，该研究将政治、政策和应用经济子领域带入了有关美国食品政策的对话，在机构之间建立了基础设施，以促进数据收集和分析，包括与社区研究伙伴和MSI学生研究人员的积极合作。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This study examines how state-level policy ameliorates or exacerbates institutionalized inequality in food security, food access, and food business ownership in the United States. In 2018, an estimated 1 in 9 Americans were food insecure (37 million Americans, including more than 11 million children). The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity in the United States. Among African American, Latino, and immigrant communities’ food insecurity is higher leading to serious chronic disease prevalence in these communities. In 2019, 1 in 6 minority residents in the United States also lived in a community with limited availability and accessibility to retail grocery outlets. Nevertheless, as of 2020, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. businesses with employees were minority-owned, and a portion of these businesses were contributing to the food environment of communities by providing access to both retail grocery and dining services. The project examines two broad research questions related to the combination of food security, food access, and food business ownership that constitute a community’s food environment. The first question is: What is the role of state and local policy in the food environment in the United States? Further, how do state and local food policies affect individual food security and food access? The broader impacts of the study are numerous. The efforts will develop academic, institutional, and community partnerships connecting political science, public affairs, and applied economics research that allows for a reimagining of food systems research that does not keep diverse stakeholders on the fringe but incorporates them into existing political, economic, and food systems. Moreover, the research will shed light on the ongoing racial, ethnic, and nativity disparities embedded in U.S. state-level food policy. The investigation will implement a two-part mixed methods approach to answer research questions related to the variation in food environments across states. Part I will compile data into a novel dataset to understand the influence of food policy on the food environment at state and county levels, as well as the influence of the food environment on individuals. Part II involves a qualitative approach using research interviews in urban, suburban, and rural communities in California, Indiana, Maine, New York, and Texas, to solicit open-ended feedback on how immigrant communities and communities of color perceive their food environments, opportunities for food business entrepreneurship, and existing food policies. The project will work with community partners to co-create, disseminate, and analyze the interview instrument and its results across the five strategically chosen study sites. These in-depth research interviews will highlight how state policy shapes the individual attitudes and access. Lastly, this project will collect a county-level dataset informed by the findings from the qualitative interview instrument to investigate how residents and entrepreneurs interact with local and state bureaucracy and their local food environment. This investigation will explain how decisions at the state level (policies and expenditures) are significantly correlated with a change in the quality of individual and local food environments. Most importantly, the research brings politics, policy, and applied economic subfields into conversation regarding U.S. food policy, building an infrastructure among institutions to facilitate data collection and analysis that includes active collaboration with community research partners and MSI student researchers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.