Planning for Food Access

A National Scan and Evaluation of Local Comprehensive Plans

Poor, underserved communities are often plagued with unhealthy food environments, which can negatively impact eating behavior of children and adolescents. The comprehensive plan — including sustainability plans — directly influences a community's urban design and land-use regulations, which affect the proximity of food outlets to schools and residential areas, and the prevalence and types of food outlets available in neighborhoods.

Collectively, these factors drive the availability of healthy and unhealthy foods in a community. While some local governments are including food access goals and policies in their local plans, little is understood about the quality, specificity and comprehensiveness of these goals and policies, and their consistency with implementation mechanisms.

The primary aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the development, adoption and implementation of food access goals and policies of comprehensive and sustainability plans across the U.S. for the purpose of reducing food access disparities among children, adolescents and adults. The secondary aim is to provide policymakers and planners with case examples of innovative food access goal and policy development, adoption and implementation strategies to improve food environments.

Through a national, web-based survey and plan evaluation and case study research, the Planning and Community Health Research Center will identify and inventory comprehensive and sustainability plans with food access goals and policies. It will examine and evaluate the clarity, quality, and comprehensiveness of these goals and policies; the process used to develop, adopt and implement them; and the consistency between these goals and policies and implementation mechanisms.

Research results will be published in a report in 2012. This project is being funded by a grant, awarded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national program Healthy Eating Research. The program supports research on environmental and policy strategies with strong potential to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity, especially among low-income and racial and ethnic populations at highest risk for obesity.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years, the foundation has brought experience, commitment and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.