Graduate Research Papers

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Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Abstract

Food insecurity affects millions of Americans and has been widely recognized as a significant health and economic issue. Because of this, researchers have sought to develop ways to identify areas that are prone to food insecurity, which have become known as food deserts. Food deserts have been broadly defined through a confluence of three factors: low income, a lack of vehicle access, and a predetermined distance from a healthy food retailer. But research into food deserts in Iowa is limited, and the most prominent source of information on this topic, the Food Access Research Atlas created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been criticized for its questionable methodologies. The goals of this project are twofold. First, in an attempt to provide more accurate and up-to-date maps of food deserts in the Iowa cities of Waterloo and Des Moines, this project used GIS techniques, food-access measurement variables from a range of studies, and a nutritional audit of smaller food retailers excluded from the USDA’s analysis to produce a variety of maps of areas of low food access. These maps were compared to see if different techniques of evaluating the spatial landscape of food access in urban areas yields similar results.

Year of Submission

2024

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Geography

First Advisor

Alex Oberle

Date Original

5-2024

Object Description

1 PDF (99 pages)

Language

en

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