Differential access to food outlets in Chicago.

More than one in ten Americans are food insecure, with significantly higher rates in minority communities. Most of the extensive research on food insecurity focuses on food deserts and the accessibility to well-stocked supermarkets, with much less known about the role of dollar stores in the urban environment. We draw on retail redlining as a conceptual framework because of its utility in describing the interaction of race/ethnicity, poverty, and profit-seeking in the spatial distribution of food outlets in urban areas. Specifically, we examine how race/ethnicity and poverty predict differential access to dollar stores and supermarkets in Chicago. We find that race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of access to retail outlets, even when controlling for a variety of additional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]