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Three Essays Examining Household Demand for Healthy Foods

Collins, LaPorchia Antoinette
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469056517

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics.
Most Americans do not consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables (FV). We explore the potential for the retail food environment to push Americans toward healthier dietary habits. First, we conduct a hedonic analysis to test whether households value access to farmers markets, a key source of fresh produce. The results suggest that a one-mile increase in distance to the closest farmers market yields a 1.1% decline in housing prices, with the effect being strongest for low-cost housing and areas with poor-quality food environments. Second, we use a county-level, modified retail food environment index to examine the impact of the food environment on the quantity of FV purchases of U.S. households. We find that merely increasing the proportion of food retailers that are healthy does not impact FV purchases overall but may help to reduce racial disparities in FV purchases among black households in urban counties and Hispanic households in rural counties. Lastly, we identify three homogenous groups of the U.S. population based on FV purchasing patterns using a latent class model that accounts for both the quantity and frequency of purchases. We test whether residing in a food desert affects FV purchasing patterns using multinomial logistic regression and find that residing in a food desert does not independently affect FV purchasing patterns, though the effects of income and race do depend on whether a household resides in a food desert. Overall, the findings provide insight to policy makers aiming to improve dietary outcomes by modifying the food environment.
Elena Irwin (Advisor)
Joyce Chen (Committee Member)
Brian Roe (Committee Member)
155 p.
Agricultural Economics; Economics
retail food access; housing prices; diet; health; fruits and vegetables; farmers markets; food deserts

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Collins, L. A. (2016). Three Essays Examining Household Demand for Healthy Foods [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469056517

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Collins, LaPorchia. Three Essays Examining Household Demand for Healthy Foods. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469056517.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Collins, LaPorchia. "Three Essays Examining Household Demand for Healthy Foods." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469056517

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1469056517
584
© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.