Diet And Perceptions Change With Supermarket Introduction In A Food Desert, But Not Because Of Supermarket Use

Placing full-service supermarkets in food deserts (areas with limited access to healthy foods) has been proposed as an important policy strategy to confront inequalities in healthy food access. Capitalizing on a natural experiment, we enrolled n=1,372 randomly selected households from two comparable neighborhoods, one of which received a full-service supermarket in 2013. We looked at the impact on residents’ diet, perceived access to healthy foods and satisfaction with one’s neighborhood as a place to live. Baseline data was collected in 2011, and follow-up in 2014. Relative to the comparison neighborhood, we found a net positive change in the intervention neighborhood in overall dietary quality, total kilocalories, added sugars, and solid fats, alcohol and added sugars (SoFAAS). However, we did not observe differential improvement in fruit and vegetable intake, whole grain consumption or body mass index (BMI). Regular users of the new supermarket had significantly improved perceived access to healthy foods compared to others, but use of the new supermarket was not related to dietary changes or to improvements with neighborhood satisfaction. Our study is the first to our knowledge to have found significant improvements in multiple dietary outcomes and neighborhood satisfaction among residents of a food desert, following the opening of a supermarket. Our study supports the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and other policies that incentivize food retail venues to locate in food deserts, but we recommend further efforts proceed with caution until research has clarified the mechanisms through which diet is improved and associations with weight status/obesity have been observed.