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Examining the Geography of Food Deserts and Food Swamps In EXAMINING THE GEOGRAPHY OF FOOD DESERTS AND FOOD SWAMPS IN AUSTIN, TEXAS by He Jin, B.A., M.S. A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Council of Texas State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Geographic Information Science May 2019 Committee Members: Yongmei Lu, Chair Benjamin Zhan Russell Weaver Tonny Oyana Lesli Biediger-Friedman COPYRIGHT by He Jin 2019 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSION STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94- 553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work I, He Jin, authorize duplication of this work, in whole or in part, for educational or scholarly purposes only. DEDICATION To my father and mother who inspired my pursuit of doctoral degree. This is for both of you. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation work was completed under the supervision of my advisor Dr. Yongmei Lu. I want to express my sincere gratitude to her for her guidance, support, and encouragement at Texas State University. I have been deeply influenced by Dr. Lu’s outstanding personalities — creativity, earnestness, persistence, and ambitiousness. She brought me to the frontier of food environment and health geography studies. I thank her for teaching me how to conduct scientific research, publish research papers with different journals, and respond to review comments through manuscript revisions. She shared with me without reservation her experiences on the various aspects of academic life, including teaching, scientific writing, and job searching. She also supported me to overcome the difficulty times and helped me fit in the department. Through the many conversations we had, she always encouraged me to stay true to my dream and not give up easily. Dr. Lu funded my dissertation survey; I could not have completed my research without her generous support. I also would like to thank my dissertation committee members: Dr. F. Ben Zhan, who gave me critical comments and helped me to improve my research; Dr. Russell Weaver, who helped me refine my research questions and recommended alternative statistical analysis methods; Dr. Tony Oyana, for his suggestions on my literature reviews and theoretical framework; Dr. Lesli Biediger-Friedman who assisted me in developing v the food survey instrument. I could not have completed my dissertation without their tremendous help and professional support. My special thanks go to the Department of Geography at Texas State University. I appreciate the finical support from our department for the past four years. I want to thank two faculty members especially Drs. Lawrence E. Estaville and Xingde Jia at Texas State University for their financial support in my fifth year. Many faculty members, including Drs. Nate Currit, Alberto Giordano, Ronald Hagelman, Edwin Chow, and Yihong Yuan, have guided me through the various courses I took. I appreciate the staff members in the department — Allison Glass-Smith, Angelika Wahl, Pat Hell-Jones, and Charles Robinson for their support during my doctoral program. I want to express my gratitude to my fellow graduate students: Yunuen Reygadas, Shadae Dixon, Zahra Ghaffari, Francesco Zignol, Saeideh Gharehchahi, Nathaniel Dede- Bamfo, Graciela Sandoval, Niaz Morshed, and Brendan Lavy. With my Chinese friends, Xujiao Wang, Guixing Wei, Wen Lu, Xiaowen Cui, Zhaoceng song, and Yahan Teng, we gathered together on weekends and made traditional Chinese cuisines, which warmed up my heart, and kept me from being lonely in the U.S. I thank them for their time, kindness, company, and spiritual support. I highly appreciate the tremendous time and efforts my peer, Dr. Ning Niu, spent to help with some of the technical issues for my dissertation analyses. My appreciation also goes to my best friends Xianhui Li and Xingkong Ma, who comforted me when I encountered difficult times. vi I am very grateful to my master thesis advisor, Dr. Shixiong Hu, for his consistent support and care in the past five years. Thanks also go to my master program lecturer Bill Chappel and his wife Kim Chappel for their warm blessing during my pursuit of this doctoral degree. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my parents, Tianding Jin and Qunying Zhou, who raised me to be a responsible person. I thank my brother Qiao Jin and sister-in-law Huijie Chen and my lovely niece Yuxi Jin and nephew Baohuan Jin, for bringing so much happiness into my life. Special thanks must go to my loving husband, Shuai Ji, for his love, patience, and encouragement along the way. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... xv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Background ............................................................................................................1 The Issues of Food Desert and Food Swamp ........................................................5 Food Deserts, Food Swamps, and Food Insecurity .............................................11 Limitations in Retail Food Environment Research .............................................17 Study Objectives and Research Questions ..........................................................19 Structure of the Dissertation ................................................................................22 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................... 24 Food and Health: Shifting to Social Ecological-based Perspective ....................24 Conceptual Frameworks of Retail Food Environment ........................................30 Community Nutrition Environment ....................................................................35 Consumer Nutrition Environment .......................................................................54 3 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK........................................................................... 65 Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................65 4 EXAMINING GEOGRAPHICAL ACCESSIBILITY TO FOOD OUTLETS IN AUSTIN, TEXAS ...................................................................................................... 70 Introduction .........................................................................................................70 Study Area and Unit of Analysis .........................................................................75 Data Source and Data Preparation .......................................................................76 Methodology ........................................................................................................90 viii Result ...................................................................................................................99 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................115 5 EXPLORING ECONOMIC AND SOCIOCULTURAL DISPARITIES IN ACCESS TO FOOD OUTLETS ............................................................................. 122 Introduction .......................................................................................................122 Data ....................................................................................................................129 Method ...............................................................................................................131 Results ...............................................................................................................142 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................166 6 EVALUATING THE CONSUMER NUTRITION ENVIRONMENT IN FOOD DESERTS AND FOOD SWAMPS ......................................................................... 173 Introduction .......................................................................................................173 Method ...............................................................................................................178 Results ...............................................................................................................185 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................203 7 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................. 209 Findings and Implication ...................................................................................210 Contribution .......................................................................................................216 Limitation and Future Direction ........................................................................220 APPENDIX
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