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Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified), Open
Journal article
Community solutions to food apartheid: A spatial analysis of community food-growing spaces and neighborhood demographics in Philadelphia
Social science & medicine (1982), v 310, 115221
01 Oct 2022
PMID: 36058113
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Black and low-income neighborhoods tend to have higher concentrations of fast-food restaurants and low produce supply stores. Limited access to and consumption of nutrient-rich foods is associated with poor health outcomes. Given the realities of food access, many members within the Black communities grow food as a strategy of resistance to food apartheid, and for the healing and self-determination that agriculture offers.
In this paper, we unpack the history of Black people, agriculture, and land in the United States. In addition to our brief historical review, we conduct a descriptive epidemiologic study of community food-growing spaces, food access, and neighborhood racial composition in present day Philadelphia. We leverage one of the few existing datasets that systematically documents community food-growing locations throughout a major US city. By applying spatial regression techniques, we use conditional autoregressive models to determine if there are spatial associations between Black neighborhoods, poverty, food access, and urban agriculture in Philadelphia.
Fully adjusted spatial models showed significant associations between Black neighborhoods and urban agriculture (RR: 1.28, 95% CI = 1.03, 1.59) and poverty and urban agriculture (RR: 1.27, 95% CI = 1.1, 1.46). The association between low food access and the presence of urban agriculture was generally increased across neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Black residents.
These results show that Philadelphia neighborhoods with higher populations of Black people and neighborhoods with lower incomes, on average, tend to have more community gardens and urban farms. While the garden data is non-temporal and non-causal, one possible explanation for these findings, in alignment with what Philadelphia growers have claimed, is that urban agriculture may be a manifestation of collective agency and community resistance in Black and low-income communities, particularly in neighborhoods with low food access.
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Details
- Title
- Community solutions to food apartheid: A spatial analysis of community food-growing spaces and neighborhood demographics in Philadelphia
- Creators
- Ashley B. Gripper - Drexel University, Environmental and Occupational HealthRachel Nethery - Harvard UniversityTori L. Cowger - Harvard UniversityMonica White - University of Wisconsin–MadisonIchiro Kawachi - Harvard UniversityGary Adamkiewicz - Harvard University
- Publication Details
- Social science & medicine (1982), v 310, 115221
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 1
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Environmental and Occupational Health
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000863098900001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85137013018
- Other Identifier
- 991021861203404721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
- Social Sciences, Biomedical