Spatial Accessibility to Charitable Food Assistance Programs: Considering Community Social Vulnerability

Keywords: food assistance programs, social vulnerability index, accessibility
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Background and Objectives: During the global pandemic, Americans have experienced increased economic hardship and food insecurity. This situation led to a rise in need of community-based food assistance programs (CFAPs), particularly for those socially vulnerable communities. The purpose of this study is to determine whether these programs are spatially accessible to socially vulnerable communities by visualizing the spatial distribution of CFAPs in Orange County, Florida.
Data and Methods: Initial data regarding food programs were collected through various websites such as FreeFood.org and FoodPantries.org and were geocoded via ArcGIS mapping software. Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) was obtained from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention website. The SVIs measure the social vulnerability of each census tract with an overall index and four sub-indexes focusing on socioeconomic status, household composition and disability, minority status and language, housing type and transportation. Mapping and a series of regression models were used to examine whether the CFAPs are accessible to those most socially vulnerable census tracts.
Results: Out of 32 CFAPs, 22 are located in the census tracts with the highest SVIs. Despite that most CFAPs are distributed in areas with high SVI scores, some socially vulnerably census tracts are still far away from the CFAPs. Among five SVIs, except the Household Composition & Disability index, all other SVIs display significantly negative association with the dependent variable (accessibility to FAPs).
Conclusion: More action needs to be taken to increase socially vulnerable populations’ accessibility to CFAPs.