Evaluating a food hub's impact on food access, diet and weight in a food desert

描述（由申请人提供）：获得健康食品的机会少与饮食不良和肥胖增加有关。由于弱势社区缺乏健康食品销售点，地方和国家采取了增加健康食品供应的举措。在这些被称为“食物沙漠”的地区，超市或其他健康食品销售点的位置是否会改善饮食质量还不得而知。一个这样的食品出口是食品中心，一个当地生产的食品的出口，通常以获得健康食品、当地粮食安全、经济发展和社区教育和培训为目标。它们是通常不愿意设在高度贫困地区的连锁超市的替代品。这项研究的目的是评估在南卡罗来纳州的食物沙漠社区的食物枢纽的影响。食品中心将包括一个农贸市场、城市农场、移动的市场、咖啡馆和社区营养教育和烹饪艺术职业培训的教室。它将雇用23名当地人，并寻求增加获得当地农产品和现场生产的其他食品的机会。该研究将招募来自周边社区的280名主要食品购物者和来自偏远社区的280名对照组，这些对照组的特征包括贫困，种族组成和获得健康食品的机会。在食品中心开放之前，将对560名参与者进行面对面访谈，并在12个月和24个月时再次进行访谈，以评估饮食摄入量，体重，对社区食品环境和食品购物习惯的看法，以及与饮食选择有关的其他一些社会和态度措施。将利用全球定位系统和地理信息系统技术评估两个社区的食物环境，并计算出从参加者住所到各类食品店（例如，杂货店、便利店、农贸市场和快餐店）的距离。对食品中心农贸市场随机选择的几天的销售数据和购物者的问卷调查进行进一步分析，将表明周围食品沙漠的居民是否代表越来越多的顾客。社区领导人将通过焦点小组和访谈提供他们对食品中心对社区的影响及其成功和挑战的印象。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Low access to healthy food is associated with poor diet and increased obesity. The scarcity of healthy food outlets in disadvantaged communities has led to local and national initiatives to increase healthy food access. It is unknown if locatin supermarkets or other outlets for healthy foods in these areas, called "food deserts," will improve diet quality. One such food outlet is the food hub, an outlet for locally produced food that typically have healthy food access, local food security, economic development and community education and training as goals. They are an alternative to supermarket chains that are often unwilling to locate in areas of high poverty. The goal of this research is to evaluate th impact of a food hub in a food desert community in South Carolina. The food hub will include a farmers' market, urban farm, mobile market, cafe and classrooms for community nutrition education and culinary arts job training. It will employ 23 local people and seeks to increase access to local produce and other food products produced on-site. The study will enroll 280 primary food shoppers from the surrounding community and 280 from a control group from a distant community matched on characteristics such as poverty, racial composition and access to healthy food. In-person interviews will be conducted with the 560 participants before the food hub's opening and again at 12 and 24 months to assess dietary intake, body weight, perceptions of the community food environment and food shopping habits, as well as a number of other social and attitudinal measures related to dietary choices. Global Positioning System and Geographic Information Systems technology will be use to assess the two communities' food environment and to calculate measures such as distance from participants' residences to various types of food outlets (for example, grocery store, convenience store, farmers' market , and fast food restaurant). Additional analyses of sales figures and questionnaires from shoppers present on randomly selected days at the food hub's farmers' market will indicate if residents of the surrounding food desert represent an increasing proportion of customers. Community leaders will provide their impressions of the food hub's impact on the community and its successes and challenges through focus groups and interviews.