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by: USDA, Economic Research Service
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with Michelle Obama’s anti-childhood obesity campaign, has released a web-based map application to help show how factors such as store/restaurant proximity, food prices, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics influence food choices and diet quality.
The Food Environment Atlas allows users to map out 90 food environment factors including access to local grocery stores, expenditures at restaurants, food taxes, access to local food markets, and socio-economic characteristics. These factors can then be compared across the United States on a county level to help determine what factors create healthy sustainable communities. Individual factors can be combined to allow the user to gain a better understanding of what is happening and the way environmental factors relate to one another. The data can then be downloaded and further analyzed using geographical information system software. The website provides a good source of information for those who want to better understand how one’s physical environment factors into health and well-being.
Resource(s): http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/
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