A study of fruit and vegetable accessibility in rural areas of England James Sully

Main research aims To understand how physical, economic and social factors influence access to fruit and vegetables in rural areas of England To understand how fruit and vegetable access in rural areas of England affects individual diets and health

Physical – factors potentially affecting fruit and vegetable access in rural areas Mid-1970s onwards - expansion of edge-of-town supermarkets caused the closure of many small food stores led to a declining number of opportunities for purchasing fruit and vegetables 2000s onwards - expansion of the major food multiples into the convenience sector e.g. garage forecourts, Express stores etc. has caused the rate of closures of smaller food stores to accelerate resulting in a further decline in food shopping opportunities Certain groups of rural England: low mobility groups, low socio-economic status groups etc. most likely to suffer from poor access to fruit and vegetables because they are unable to travel easily to supermarkets and may not have a local food store to purchase fruit and vegetables

Economic – factors potentially affecting fruit and vegetable access in rural England Cost of fruit and vegetables varies between stores and between store-types: supermarkets tend to be cheaper than smaller food stores but Including the cost of individual travel may result in their being more expensive Low income groups of the rural population may suffer from poor economic access

Social – factors potentially affecting fruit and vegetable access in rural England Nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, lifestyle choices and cooking skills have all been identified as determinants of an individual accessing fruit and vegetables Individuals may have good physical and economic access to fruit and vegetables but social barriers may still exist e.g. an individual may not be aware of the importance of consuming 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day

Methodology Linear programming will be used to calculate fruit and vegetable price information. The minimum cost of fruit and vegetables at each food store in the study area (subject to palatability and nutritional constraints) will be calculated GIS will calculate the distances between centroid points of Output Areas and food stores and a travel cost will be attached to the minimum purchase cost of fruit and vegetables at each store Those Output Areas where fruit and vegetables are the most expensive, taking into account actual cost and travel cost, become the focus for further study

Surveys will be carried out collecting information on: Individual and household demographic and socio-economic characteristics e.g. car ownership, age, gender, educational attainment etc Shopping habits in respect of fruit and vegetable purchases e.g. shopping frequency, mode of travel to and from usual store for purchasing fruit and vegetable etc Nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, lifestyles choices etc. Individual fruit and vegetable consumption

Methodological problems - 1 -How to measure individual fruit and vegetable consumption in relation to distance from certain store-types e.g. large supermarket, small independent food store etc. -Individual fruit and vegetable consumption available from surveys -Distance to store-type available from GIS -Solving this problem will establish whether households living close to a large supermarket etc. e.g. within a 1,000 metres radius consume more fruit and vegetables than those living more than 1,000 metres away -Is it possible to run different models grouping individuals and households by demographic and socio-economic characteristics?

Other methodological problems – 2a To determine the individual and household demographic and socio-economic characteristics that predict which food store- type is used for purchasing fruit and vegetables i.e. store-type the dependent categorical variable and demographic and socio-economic characteristics the independent predictors Data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics and usual food store-type for fruit and vegetable purchases available from survey Solving this problem will allow identification of those groups of the rural population able to access large supermarkets with lower cost, wide variety fruit and vegetables and those shopping at smaller, more expensive, limited range food stores

Other methodological problems – 2b To determine the relative importance of physical, economic and social factors in predicting access to fruit and vegetables by store-type 3 indices: physical, economic and social will be constructed from data collected in the surveys. Each index will contain 5 levels e.g. worst access = 0 – 5, best access Again store type would become the categorical dependent variable but in this model the three indices (each with 5 levels) become the explanatory variables Solving this problem will establish to what extent each of the three factors (each disaggregated into 5 levels): physical, economic and social predict access to different store-types