Community-Engaged GIS for Urban Food Justice Research

GIScience research has enhanced citizen engagement through advancements in web-based geospatial techniques and qualitative GIS methodologies, which provide opportunities for new forms of knowledge production. This paper draws on two interrelated approaches to demonstrate the ways qualitative GIS and Web 2.0 can provide nuanced analysis and foster collaborations to advance, in particular, food justice goals, which include developing equity in access to quality nutritious foods. First, the authors create a multicriteria food environment index utilizing GIS-based multicriteria modeling to represent food environments as constituted by multiple food sources and access dimensions. This enables visualization of food environment quality and indicates that food environment quality varies within a single neighborhood. Second, they utilize web GIS technologies to capture and visualize volunteered geographic information about urban food environments, demonstrating the importance of citizen perspectives to developing more nuanced understandings of these environments.

[1]  Michael F. Goodchild,et al.  Citizens as Voluntary Sensors: Spatial Data Infrastructure in the World of Web 2.0 , 2007, Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res..

[2]  C. Burns,et al.  Measuring food access in Melbourne: access to healthy and fast foods by car, bus and foot in an urban municipality in Melbourne. , 2007, Health & place.

[3]  N. Schuurman,et al.  International Journal of Health Geographics Open Access Using Gis-based Methods of Multicriteria Analysis to Construct Socio-economic Deprivation Indices , 2022 .

[4]  Jacek Malczewski,et al.  GIS‐based multicriteria decision analysis: a survey of the literature , 2006, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci..

[5]  Chanjin Chung,et al.  Do the Poor Pay More for Food? An Analysis of Grocery Store Availability and Food Price Disparities , 1999 .

[6]  Jin-Kyu Jung,et al.  Extending the Qualitative Capabilities of GIS: Computer‐Aided Qualitative GIS , 2010, Trans. GIS.

[7]  J. C. Huber,et al.  Association between neighborhood need and spatial access to food stores and fast food restaurants in neighborhoods of Colonias , 2009, International journal of health geographics.

[8]  Lawrence D Frank,et al.  Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in stores (NEMS-S): development and evaluation. , 2007, American journal of preventive medicine.

[9]  D. Rose,et al.  The importance of a multi-dimensional approach for studying the links between food access and consumption. , 2010, The Journal of nutrition.

[10]  Hélène Charreire,et al.  Measuring the food environment using geographical information systems: a methodological review , 2010, Public Health Nutrition.

[11]  B. Kelly,et al.  Measuring local food environments: an overview of available methods and measures. , 2011, Health & place.

[12]  Timothy L. Hawthorne,et al.  Using GIS and perceived distance to understand the unequal geographies of healthcare in lower-income urban neighbourhoods. , 2012, The Geographical journal.

[13]  Chery Smith,et al.  Environmental, parental, and personal influences on food choice, access, and overweight status among homeless children. , 2007, Social science & medicine.

[14]  Donald Rose,et al.  Food store access and household fruit and vegetable use among participants in the US Food Stamp Program , 2004, Public Health Nutrition.

[15]  J. Burke,et al.  Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. , 2010, Health & place.

[16]  J. Guthman,et al.  Food Deserts, Oases, or Mirages? , 2007 .

[17]  William G. Moseley,et al.  Reaching the limits: a geographic approach for understanding food insecurity and household hunger mitigation strategies in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, USA , 2012 .

[18]  Jiulin Sun,et al.  Web GIS: Principles and Applications , 2010 .

[19]  Lawrence D. Frank,et al.  The Spatial Distribution of Food Outlet Type and Quality around Schools in Differing Built Environment and Demographic Contexts , 2011 .

[20]  S V Subramanian,et al.  The local food environment and diet: a systematic review. , 2012, Health & place.

[21]  J. Gilliland,et al.  Mapping the evolution of 'food deserts' in a Canadian city: Supermarket accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005 , 2008, International journal of health geographics.

[22]  D. Grigsby-Toussaint,et al.  Availability of commonly consumed and culturally specific fruits and vegetables in African-american and Latino neighborhoods. , 2010, Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

[23]  Jeffrey S. Wilson,et al.  Green Neighborhoods, Food Retail and Childhood Overweight: Differences by Population Density , 2007, American journal of health promotion : AJHP.

[24]  M. Goodchild,et al.  Researching Volunteered Geographic Information: Spatial Data, Geographic Research, and New Social Practice , 2012 .

[25]  Sarah Elwood,et al.  Geographic Information Science: Visualization, visual methods, and the geoweb , 2011 .

[26]  Jacek Malczewski,et al.  GIS and Multicriteria Decision Analysis , 1999 .

[27]  Alex Singleton,et al.  Web mapping 2.0: The neogeography of the GeoWeb , 2008 .

[28]  Shuming Bao,et al.  Neighborhood racial composition, neighborhood poverty, and the spatial accessibility of supermarkets in metropolitan Detroit. , 2005, American journal of public health.

[29]  J. Pearce,et al.  Neighbourhoods and health: a GIS approach to measuring community resource accessibility , 2006, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

[30]  Shannon J. Brines,et al.  Comparing Perception-Based and Geographic Information System (GIS)-Based Characterizations of the Local Food Environment , 2008, Journal of Urban Health.

[31]  Suzanne Gaulocher,et al.  Participatory photo mapping (PPM): exploring an integrated method for health and place research with young people. , 2009, Health & place.