Relationships between the built environment, sociodemographic factors and adolescents’ access to food establishments

Abstract

This paper investigates how the built environment and socio-demographic factors influence adolescents’ access to and use of food establishments. Drawing on data from the Teen Activities and Transportation Enterprise Project (TATE), the Providence Plan, the Rhode Island Yellow Pages, and the Providence Public School Department, the study applies multinomial logistic regression to assess associations between frequency of visits to healthy/unhealthy food outlets, local availability, and socio-demographic characteristics. Results show that the availability of healthy food establishments within walking distance, gender, employment status, and ethnicity significantly affect adolescents’ visits to unhealthy food environments (p < 0.05). In contrast, the presence of unhealthy food outlets, household size, number of cars, and birth nation of the student or father are not significant predictors.