Equitable Access to Nutrition in Utah
Gregory S. Macfarlane 
Convenient access to high-quality nutrition is a critical element of public health as well as an important interface between communities and the transportation system. In this research, we seek to construct a detailed picture of the nutrition environment in three communities in Utah, alongside the community members’ ability to access that environment through multiple transportation modes. In doing so we construct a utility-based accessiblity model enabled by modern mobility device data. This model reveals the tradeoffs between the quality and price of goods on one hand and the distance traveled to reach them on the other. We then apply this model to a series of potential access-improving policies: building a new store, improving an existing store, and improving the non-automobile transport network between residents and existing stores. The results show that new or improved store locations bring substantially higher benefits than improvements to the transportation system, at likely lower costs. The report recommends that UDOT work to increase the availability of community-sized grocery stores in low-access areas, and consider activity-based methods of measuring resource access.
1 Introduction
The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) recently adopted a new mission to “Enhance the Quality of Life through Transportation,” alongside a four-part framework: Better Mobility, Good Health, Connected Communities, and Strong Economies (UDOT, 2023). A critical role of the transportation system in accomplishing all elements of UDOT’s mission is ensuring that all Utah households have adequate access to quality nutrition and other community resources. Access to quality nutrition is shown to have a correlation with mental and physical well being (Francis et al., 2012), and there are many communities that do not have good accessibility to quality nutrition, with the main options being either more expensive for quality goods, or no quality goods available.
“Accessibility” is an abstract concept without a specific quantitative definition (Handy & Niemeier, 1997). However, using accessibility as a policy measure requires comparative quantification, and transportation and public health researchers have constructed several quantitative measures. Some commonly used measures include:
- Nearest destination: How close is the nearest grocery store?
- Opportunities within a travel time: How many grocery stores can be reached within 30 minutes?
These types of measures require the researcher to make a series of assumptions and assertions: why is 30 minutes chosen instead of 40? Is that time by transit or highway or walking? Should these definitions change for individuals in different socioeconomic groups? And do people always go to the closest grocery store to begin with? How much further are people willing to travel to go to a store that is cheaper or that has a wider variety of goods? A measure that combines all of these different considerations is desirable.
1.1 Objectives
The objective of this project is to develop an understanding of what variables and attributes are desirable in grocery stores for populations in different areas of Utah, in order to help identify where to make improvements to increase equitable access to nutrition in Utah. The proposed logit model methodology is developed from a connection between three extensive data sources:
- A detailed survey of the nutrition market in three Utah communities
- Location-based services data derived from mobile phone records revealing which grocery stores are frequented by residents of different neighborhoods
- Multi-modal network data providing detailed mobility data by car, walking, and public transit.
These data will be combined in order to develop accurate logit models that demonstrate the variables that are significant to grocery store choice in Utah. These models could then be used to find accessibility to stores and impact transportation policy to improve quality of life for all communities in Utah.
1.2 Outline
This document is organized in a typical manner. Chapter 2 presents a review of transportation organizations’ efforts to improve general health outcomes in their communities, followed by a specific review of research exploring the relationship between nutrition access and health. The methodology for data collection and modeling is described in Chapter 3 and a description of the nutrition environment and choice models estimates follows in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents a series of scenarios to which we apply the models estimated in Chapter 4, illustrating the interrelated elements of nutrition quality and transportation infrastructure in developing more complete access to nutrition. The document concludes in Chapter 6 with a list of limitations and a pair of recommendations to UDOT.