Combat Food Desert: Smart Access to Healthy Food

Food deserts are among the major contributing factors to food insecurity. There are more than 6,500 food desert tracts in the U.S., home to 23.5 million Americans. Rural food deserts are more than 10 miles from the nearest grocery store, and this distance poses extraordinary challenges for those who do not have a vehicle or cannot drive. In urban food deserts, people's grocery store inaccessibility is exacerbated by easy access to unhealthy fast-food restaurants, which negatively influences overall health. Lack of access to healthy foods lead to increased obesity and diet-related diseases. To tackle this fundamental problem, the proposed project aims to develop an integrated accessibility model along with a transit decision-making tool. Ultimately, a digital platform compatible with the existing transit system will be designed to allow residents access transit schedules, shop Online, learn about healthy foods and nutrition facts, and assess their nutritional ingredient intake. The digital platform will be the first community-based tool offering professional, highly accurate, and customized options tailored based on the results of the decision-support model for food deserts. The proposed data-driven yet simplistic methodology can be replicated in other municipalities to develop an accurate method of prioritizing areas for investments to reduce food disparities.