Increasing Access to Healthy Foods through Improving Food Environment: A Review of Mixed Methods Intervention Studies with Residents of Low-Income Communities

Abstract

Food insecurity is a broad and serious public health issue in the United States, where many people are reporting lack of access to healthy foods. The reduced availability of healthy, affordable foods has led to increased consumption of energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods, resulting in increasing the risk for many chronic diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Thus, identifying promising approaches to increase access to healthy foods through improving the food environment is of importance. The purpose of this review article is to highlight how the food environment affects directly a person’s food choices, and how to increase access to healthy foods through improving environmental approaches. The literature search was focused on finding different approaches to improve food security, primarily those with an impact on food environment. Overall, potential solutions were gathered through multilevel environmental approaches, including nutrition education and peer education, community-based participatory research, and policy changes in supplemental nutrition programs. A recommendation to reduce food insecurity is learning to create meals with a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables purchased from affordable farmers’ markets.

Dietary Sodium and Potassium Patterns in Adults with Food Insecurity in the Context of Hypertension Risk

“…Implementing policies and interventions to mitigate food insecurity and enhance dietary quality, especially in low-income communities, can significantly contribute to lessening the burden of hypertension. 35…”

Can Ordering Groceries Online Support Diet Quality in Adults Who Live in Low Food Access and Low-Income Environments?

“…Adults who perceived their home and store food environments as less healthy and who did not participate in many food assistance programs or use online grocery ordering had the poorest diet quality. These findings underscore the opportunity to improve online digital and nutrition literacy [ 21 ] and increase facilitators and decrease barriers to online ordering [ 23 ] with SNAP food assistance programs, especially in unhealthy food environments [ 3 , 14 , 48 , 49 ].…”

“…Food accessibility is a multidimensional concept, which includes the affordability of healthy foods, distance to a grocery store, the density of grocery stores, and availability of culturally relevant foods [ 3 ]. In lower-income neighborhoods, residents may have long travel times to stores with healthy food, and oftentimes, they rely on personal vehicles, which can make transit for grocery trips both time-consuming and expensive [ 4 , 5 ].…”

Selected Organizational and Managerial Aspects of Health and Nutrition Education of Various Types of Consumers of Spa Treatment Services in Poland

“…Currently, multilevel approaches are being promoted in order to increase nutritional security, especially among the elderly, poor or less educated groups. A tiered approach means applying a multi-directional model of action to improve the nutritional status of the population, and includes: nutrition education materials, providing participants with healthy recipes, workshops, tasting events with healthy products, improving participants’ culinary skills in preparing low-cost meals, and changing the food policy in the area., e.g., by reducing the prices of such products or by increasing access to healthy food [ 34 ]. Even short-term nutritional education has been shown to be effective, making people more aware of the sodium content of processed foods as well as nutrient and caloric foods, the importance of exercise, and the interpretation of nutritional levels [ 35 ].…”