科研之友
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摘要
First, the use of three measures of accessibility to supermarkets is very helpful in identifying food deserts according to several dimensions: proximity (distance to the nearest supermarket), diversity (number of supermarkets within a distance of less than 1000 metres) and variety in terms of food and prices (average distance to the three closest different chain-name supermarkets).Next, the cluster analysis applied to the three measures of accessibility to supermarkets and to a social deprivation index demonstrates that there are very few problematic food deserts in Montr谷al. In fact, census tracts classified as socially deprived and with low accessibility to supermarkets are, on average, 816 metres away from the nearest supermarket and within 1.34 kilometres of three different chain-name supermarkets.We conclude that food deserts do not represent a major problem in Montr谷al. Since geographic accessibility to healthy food is not a major issue in Montr谷al, prevention efforts should be directed toward the understanding of other mechanisms leading to an unhealthy diet, rather than attempting to promote an even spatial distribution of supermarkets.Since the mid-1990s there has been an increasing interest每particularly in Britain每in identifying areas within cities that have poor access to basic retail services and, more specifically, to food retailers [1]. Such areas are known as food deserts, a concept defined by the UK Low Income Project Team as %26quot;areas of relative exclusion where people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing healthy food%26quot; [2](p.138). These barriers are often linked to spaces of poverty, in part because some people in these areas have little mobility, whether this be short-term (no access to a car) or long-term mobility (lack of choice of residence due to lack of means). The absence of supermarkets in some spaces of poverty would therefore suggest that low income families without a car will tend to shop in small local shops that often sel
