Neighborhoods and Grocery Store Chains: A GIS Approach to Studying Socio-Economic

Food environment is defined as the physical presence of food, the distribution of food stores, food service, and an individual's proximity to food store locations. Food access has been the focus of numerous studies across the United States, particularly in urban areas. Nevertheless, little work has been conducted on associations between urban and rural food environments. Grocery stores epitomize an environment in which a majority of people's food purchases occur.;In past studies, geographic information systems are used to measure distance and concentration of food outlets in urban studies. In this study GIS will be utilized to run a comparative analysis on rural and urban grocery stores and the neighborhoods they serve in rural southeastern North Carolina. This analysis will produce a snapshot of the surrounding population's demographics, allowing for comparison between neighborhood populations both inside and outside of the defined 1-mile study area in order to define a correlation.