Selective Daily Mobility Bias in the Community Food Environment: Case Study of Greater Hartford, Connecticut

Keywords: Obesity; community food environment; human mobility; selective daily mobility bias (SDMB); socio-economic characteristics
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The community food environment has potential influences on community members’ die-11 tary health outcomes, such as obesity and Type II diabetes. However, most existing studies evalu-12 ating such health effects neglect human mobility. In food patrons’ daily travel, certain locations may 13 be preferred and patronized more frequently than others. This behavioral uncertainty, known as the 14 selective daily mobility bias (SDMB), is less explored in community food environmental research. 15 In this paper, we aim to confirm the existence of the SDMB by systematically exploring the large-16 scale GPS-based restaurant visit patterns in the Greater Harford region, Connecticut. Next, we ex-17 plore the restaurant and neighborhood characteristics that are associated with the restaurant visit 18 patterns. Our primary results demonstrate that 1) most restaurant customers originated from areas 19 outside of the census tract where the restaurant was located, and 2) restaurants located in socially 20 vulnerable areas attracted more total customers, customers from local areas, and customers from 21 other socially vulnerable areas. These results confirm the relevance of the SDMB to the community 22 food environment and suggest ways that the SDMB can be moderated by an uneven socio-economic 23 landscape. The findings demonstrate the necessity of incorporating human mobility data in the 24 study of the community food environment.