Compare Your Area's Food Environment With the Rest of the Country

The food environment -- including the stores and restaurants in a community, food prices at those establishments, and community norms about food and health -- affects daily food choices. Over a lifetime, the food environment's influence on food choices can add up, affecting individuals' and communities' health. The ERS Food Environment Atlas helps shed light on food environments across the US. With over 90 food environment indicators, the Atlas provides a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so. The Atlas enables comparisons of food environments among communities. The variations and associations revealed by the Atlas do not necessarily reveal causal relationships such as whether proximity to grocery stores, density of fast food restaurants, and other access variables contribute to unhealthy weights. Additional research on the complex interactions among food environment factors and health will help identify causal relationships and provide input in developing effective policy interventions.